


I Never Asked For This

by Camerahead12



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Castiel (Supernatural), Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Beta Sam Winchester, COVID-19, Claiming, Claiming Bites, Croanavirus, Croatoan Virus (Supernatural), Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Doctor Sam Winchester, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Gay Panic, Homophobic Language, Knotting, M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Mildly Dubious Consent, Omega Dean, Omega Dean Winchester, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Dean, POV Dean Winchester, Past Rape/Non-con, Scent Marking, Scenting, Slow Burn, The Author Regrets Nothing, Virus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camerahead12/pseuds/Camerahead12
Summary: When Covid-19 hit there were skeptics. There are always going to be people who doubt what's actually going on since it never happens to them. Dean Winchester would be the first to admit he was doubtful to what was actually going on. That is, until it hit home.As the world begins to change around them like no one has ever seen before, Dean has to accept some dramatic changes of his own.Or;The one where everything was fine, until it wasn't, because the government decided to fuck with science and create what we all know as, Alphas, Betas and Omegas.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 27
Kudos: 128
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You know how you get those random nudges to write something and it just takes off? Well this particular story has been circulating in my cranium for the past weeks so finally I decided to let it loose. I have quite of bit of written, so that's optimistic. Heh. Due to my insane work hours with this damn virus going on, I make no promises on when they'll come out seeing as I'm never home to do so. Sorry. v_v
> 
> But, if you stick with it, you're in for a wild ride.

When everyone first started hearing about the virus no one took it seriously. The news hardly covered the sickness at all, and it really just sounded like a bad case of the flu. Dean couldn’t understand why everyone what freaking out about overseas.

By the end of the month the news reports started covering it a little more. Hundreds were dead; hospitals overrun with the sick. It had spread to other countries and their body count seemed even higher than where it started from. One rumor said that it all started because of a bat.

“That’s bullshit,” his younger brother, Sam, says one Friday they both happened to be off work. “Bats have been around for years, and people have been eating all sorts of weird shit. You’re telling me that _now_ someone – just one person – managed to get this virus and somehow spread it like wildfire overnight? I call bullshit.”

By the middle of the month international flights were canceled. California and New York reported their first cases. Over the next three days upwards of seventy people had become infected, twenty of them were on ventilators. By the end of the following week California passed a new order forcing businesses to shut down and people to stay at home. New York followed suit. Across the ocean, the death tolls were well past the thousands and many more infected.

And still people, including Dean, acted like the world was overreacting. That it couldn’t be “that bad” and it was mostly just a giant media scare because of it being an election year. Probably.

Dean comes home from his weekly grocery shopping trip and throws a twenty-four pack of toilet paper at his brother, joking about how there was only six left on the shelf and he had to beat off a bunch of teenagers for it. Sammy chuckles and cracks some joke about how the apocalypse suddenly means everyone has explosive diarrhea, but there’s a wrinkle in across his forehead that means he’s worried. Dean knows that look all too well, and it makes the smile drop from his face. He doesn’t joke about the virus after that.

Sammy starts working later, coming home well after Dean gets off work from the garage and leaving well before Dean gets up for the day with his alarm at six. The rare occasions they do bump into each other in the apartment in between work schedules Sam always pleads with Dean to just stay home.

“This isn’t a fucking joke, people are dying!”

“We just set up our testing tent two days ago, and we’re already running out of protective gear for everyone.”

“We are only allowed to test two hundred and fifty people a day. That’s all the tests we can give out. We are turning people away.”

“I don’t understand why you just can’t stay home! This is serious, Dean!”

“It’s estimated that seventy-five percent of the population is infected. Only about five percent show any symptoms. By the time most of them feel bad enough to get tested they’ve probably already infected hundreds more people. By the time the tests come back positive the damage has already been done.”

One night, when the moon aligns just right, Dean and Sam happen to be home at the same time. Dean has seen his brother in passing over the course of the past month, but he really hasn’t had the chance to really look at him. He looks like shit.

He looks skinnier, if that’s even possible at all, and dark bruises underneath his eyes from lack of sleep stand out against his skin. The bridge of his nose looks angry and like it’s been rubbed raw, while deep pink indents of where his mask has to sit tightly to his face look like they’re never going to heal. Dean walks up to the table where his brother sits, slumped over picking at the label of his beer bottle, staring at it, but Dean can tell his mind is elsewhere.

Sinking into the chair beside his brother, Dean sighs, gently sets his half drunk beer on the table.

“I had to deny an old man a ventilator today,” his brother says in a quiet voice. “We only had three left and he was eighty. We have two thirty year olds, one forty year old and two others in their fifties that needed one.”

Dean’s forehead scrunches up in confusion. He may not be the smartest, but he’s able to add up the numbers pretty quickly.

Sam sits back against the chair, taking a pull from his beer. “He didn’t even make it to the end of my shift.”

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Saying something as generic as “sorry” seems almost like it would be a slap in the face. Instead, he brings the bottle up to his lips and takes a long drink.

“Do you understand what this means?” Sammy asks looking over at him through his long hair that’s fallen over his tired eyes. Dean meets his hyper focused stare for a second before dropping his gaze back to their old, second hand scratched up dinner table. “More people are going to start dying rather than go on living. I can’t save them anymore.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, but drains the rest of the bottle. Sam leaves the rest of the half drunk bottle on the table and goes to his room, quietly closing the door behind him. Dean doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at his brothers bottle, wishing he could do something to make it better.

Two days later the infected in their county spikes by the hundreds. Deaths begin to rise drastically every day. Two days since they’ve last seen each other, and Sam sends Dean a text message telling him it isn’t safe for him to stay at the apartment anymore. He’s going to bunk with a bunch of the other doctors and nurses at one of their houses closer to the hospital.

It’s only then that it really starts to sink in for Dean.

The Kansas stay at home order that Dean isn’t quite sure when it got put into place (because honestly it hasn’t made any fucking difference; no one is staying home.) gets revamped into curfews and small businesses begin shutting down until further notice. Thankfully, people who still have to work and need cars to get where they need to go which makes Dean essential. Score one for him, except wearing a mask when he interacts with the general public sucks. Being only one of the few places still open for oil changes makes Dean’s days ridiculously busy. Benny’s wife Andrea had begged Bobby to let Bobby take a leave of absence when the virus started to hit their city. Bobby agreed, and Dean couldn’t blame her. She was eight months pregnant and terrified about losing their child.

Bobby is forced to close up the shop an hour early just so they can sanitize the whole place, top to bottom, every night. Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get smell of bleach out of his nose again. After a week of nightly cleanings, his sense of smell is practically nonexistent. Food doesn’t seem to hold a taste any longer and he blames it on the chemical smell. Dean begins to lose weight.

Bobby starts coughing one afternoon after their hourly wipe down session, but claims it’s just the chemicals. Dean reluctantly agrees, but texts Sam once he’s back out in the garage, asking him what to do. The next day Bobby calls Dean before his alarm goes off, telling him he’s has to open the shop by himself today.

“What the hell are you doing, going on vacation?” Dean grumbles, tossing the blankets off him and rolling out of bed.

“Yeah, decided to book the first flight into Italy to see the sights. Hear it’s nice this time of year,” Bobby says. “What the hell do you think I’m doing, ya idjit? Your brother called me, threatening me that if I didn’t come by and see him to get tested he’d shut down my business. So until the results are back I’m under quarantine. Guess it’s you I got ta’ thank for that.”

“Holy shit,” is all Dean can say, staring blankly across his darkened room.

“Now just cause I ain’t there doesn’t mean you can start pissin’ around. I expect you to keep things runnin’ smoothly. Got it, son?” Bobby says, his gruff voice breaks off into a coughing fit.

“Got it, Bobby,” Dean says quietly.

Bobby promises to check in at the end of the day and they get off the phone. Dean goes to work and between balancing the front desk and working on cars, the day is over before he knows it. Bobby checks in right as Dean gets home. It continues like this for four days until one night Bobby doesn’t call. When Dean calls the phone just rings until the voicemail picks up.

The next morning he wakes up to text from Sammy that Bobby was admitted with no other details.

Two days later, Dean’s underneath a Mazda CX-30 when he gets a tickle in his throat out of nowhere. He tries clearing his throat to get it rid of it, but that only makes him start coughing. He doesn’t think anything of it, and brushes it off as just dirt getting up his nose or something.

The next day he wakes up feeling like he didn’t get any sleep at all. His muscles ache like he just ran some marathon that ended with him getting hit by a truck. His whole body itches like that time he got the chicken pox when he was a kid. Dean figures it’s just a mixture of breathing in so much bleach and sleeping wrong. He digs out his thermos Sam got him a few months ago for Christmas and fills it with coffee.

By the end of the day Dean doesn’t thing he’s ever felt so sore or so tired before. He manages a half assed shower before promptly collapsing on his bed. When Dean’s alarm goes off the next morning he barely manages to hit it off before rolling over and letting his exhaustion take him back under.

Everything is a bit foggy after that. He remembers being too hot and too uncomfortable. He’s too exhausted to do anything more than kick off all the covers and toss and turn until sleep grabs a hold of him and drags him under. Dean remembers his phone ringing and buzzing on his nightstand, irritated that it keeps waking him up, but feeling too weak to raise his arm to shut it off. He remembers finding strength at some point to attempt to reach out for it, but his fingers can’t seem to grip it properly and it fumbles to the floor. He remembers promptly passing out afterwards.

Bright lights, everything white and blinding, and muffled sounds of a voice that sounds like his brothers. Dean remembers panicking, not knowing where the hell is he. He remembers trying to breathe and not being able to. He remembers a lot of yelling, the sound of someone growling, and then everything goes black.

Sam says he was ventilated and in the hospital for thirteen days. When Dean asks him about Bobby, Sam changes the subject asking him about how he’s feeling, asking about any symptoms he might have, and his scent of smell. The last one probably should be a little odd, but the thing is Dean’s scent has come back with vengeance. It’s almost as if he can smell everything a hundred times better than he ever could. He can actually identify a person he has no clue of what their name is simply by their scent. His brother doesn’t seem to smell as strongly as some of the other ones, but Dean tells his brother that it’s probably just because he works at the hospital and has to sterilize himself twenty-four-seven.

The night before Dean has to open up the shop for the first time since he got sick; Sam sends him a text telling him that Bobby didn’t make it. He was cremated two weeks ago. Everything that the old man had left went to the both of him in some form or fashion and Sam will go over the will with him when they see each other. Dean doesn’t sleep that night.

After a few weeks since Dean was discharged from the hospital, the news begins reporting something else other than the number of infected and dead people. All the reports start coming in from where the virus hit first. The reporters are saying people are just going off, completely enraged, unable to control themselves. They show a video of some average looking guy punching out a window of a store, completely unphased by his strength, actions or pain. Throughout the week the media stops broadcasting infected and death numbers. Instead, they talk about how rape is on the rise throughout the country, and climbing at an alarming rate.

People begin to laugh about the whole situation like its some joke. Dean has to sit in the office, writing up some random guys ticket who smells like lemon bleach, while listening him laugh with his friend about how the affects of the virus probably just increased everyone’s libido. After the guy leaves, Dean ends up in the bathroom throwing up his breakfast. He closes early, unable to bring himself to sanitize anything before he leaves; the scent of the guy still stinging in his nose.

The bottom line of the whole thing is, no one really knows shit. Not really. Sam keeps telling Dean that it’s too new and too unexplored to know much of anything. The government still has places closed, curfews in place and orders for people to wear masks. Dean tries to think of last summer when the world wasn’t flipped upside down, but it’s all a little fuzzy.

Since everyone started hearing less about the virus and more about the odd way everyone was acting, suspiciously every other country hit the hardest with the virus are suddenly radio silent. Dean has even tries to Google Italy at one point, but just gets a generic article talking about how the “country is slowly getting back to normal”. China is even quieter, and the most recent thing he can find is something a month or two old about overrun hospitals.

Benny comes back to work shortly after Andrea gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. It’s such a relief having another body in the shop Dean is on cloud nine. It feels like a weight has lifted off his shoulders he didn’t even realize is there. He’s in such a good mood he misses the odd looks Benny keeps giving him from time to time.

After a few weeks of Benny being back, Dean is leaning into an old Toyota’s guts, trying to figure out why it’s misfiring when he the hair on the back of his neck starts standing up. He’s able to stand up straight before Benny’s face is in the side of his neck.

“What the fuck!” Dean yells, shoving Benny back. Did he just smell him?

Benny grabs his head and shakes. “I, uh, I don’t know brotha’. I was just coming out of the office and I got the whiff of somethin’ and the next thing I know –”

“I don’t even swing that way,” Dean snaps backing up a few more steps. “And even if I did, you have a fucking wife who just had a kid! I don’t care if I smell like fuckin’ roses, there are lines that you just don’t cross. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Benny looks up at him for the first time and Dean’s first instinct is to run. He grits his teeth, fighting the feeling almost pulling him to act, and stares at his friend’s eyes staring back at him which are now a reddish color. Benny is saying something, but Dean can’t hear him over the blood pounding in his ears.

Dean blinks a few times before raising his hands in a calming gester. “Hey man, having a kid is hard and all, I get that. You get shit for sleep, but uh, if you need a few days off that’s cool. You don’t have to come in here exhausted. I get it.”

Benny gives him a quizzical look before stepping forward. Dean takes one step back. Benny’s eyes sharpen, the red becoming more vibrant as he takes another step forward. Dean hesitates before taking another tentative step backwards and Benny doesn’t wait for Dean’s foot to fully set down before he starts advancing. Dean is out the garage door and into his car before he can process his exactly what he’s doing. He manages lock the doors and digs his keys out of his pocket just as Benny starts pulling at the locked door handle. With trembling fingers, he starts the car and peels out of the parking lot headed to his apartment.

He gets a text message from Benny later that night simply saying, “Locked up the shop. Need time off. Family stuff.” Dean doesn’t even respond, but instead messages his brother asking about red eyes. He falls asleep waiting for a response that never comes.

Two months after being sick, Dean starts to feel feverish again. Sam told him he shouldn’t get sick again, so he doesn’t think anything of it. He just figures he’s been working himself too hard, and given the new working arrangement with Benny in the office half the day while Dean is in the garage, then switching, it isn’t a far off assumption. At least they’ve come to some sort of working arrangement that work, so that’s all that really matters.

Dean wakes up in the middle of the night to him grinding against his mattress, blankets soaked in what he can only assume is sweat, but he’s so out of it he doesn’t care. He doesn’t even pause to get his hand involved, but comes in his boxers only having a moment of peace before he starts to panic as something gushes out of his ass. For a moment Dean thinks he somehow shit himself or something, but after doing a quick check realizes it’s only some sort of slippery, clear fluid. Twenty minutes later Dean is hornier than he’s ever been in his life and lets his body take over and do whatever it wants just to get off. He jacks himself off, three fingers deep inside himself as more of slick fluid spills out of him.

Three days later and finally coherent enough to process what he’s been doing for almost seventy-two hours straight, he calls his brother and tells him (in not so much detail) what’s been going on. Sam demands for Dean to get to the hospital for testing right away.

Dean just finishes walking through the automatic doors when some sort of spray like an automatic air freshener goes off on both sides. He sneezes and rubs his nose, unable to smell anything more than chemicals and the usual sterile hospital smell. Sam meets him in the lobby and explains that what went off when he entered is called neutralizers, used to help dampen the scent of whoever enters the hospital. He takes Dean up to the third floor and into regular check up room with some weird looking computer thing off against the wall, and starts out with taking samples of blood. As Sam is checking his vitals, swabbing his mouth and nose (the most painful tickle ever), Sam starts telling Dean what the medical side of things has been discovering.

“It wasn’t just a normal virus. The whole thing was human made, created specifically to rewrite a human’s entire genetic code makeup. It’s almost as if we share a similar code with the canine species. ” he pauses as he listens to Dean’s heartbeat for a moment before continuing. “Whatever genes or traits were more dominate before this crap happened, well, in essence that’s what a person became. The ‘virus’ was just a mask for what was really going on. While people were being taken to the hospital and near death from something no medical professional could figure out, their bodies were actually changing. Completely altering.”

Dean looks up at Sam who almost looks exactly like that twelve year old kid on Christmas morning when he woke up and discovered presents wrapped under the tree for the first time since their mother was alive. “So you’re telling me while I got a fricken tube shoved down my throat my body was just, what, reconfiguring itself?”

Sam nods, his ridiculously long hair flopping with the motion. Has he even attempted to cut his hair at all since this shit started? Dean can’t remember seeing his brother longer than a few minutes here or there since he’s been in the hospital, so he figures probably not. Maybe he should just help the kid out and shear him while he’s sleeping. If he ever comes home again. When was the last time Sam was actually at their apartment?

“Almost all of the worldwide population is asymptomatic, which is what we are calling ‘beta’s’,” he says sitting down on a rolling stool beside the examination table where Dean is sitting. “That pretty much just means anyone who didn’t get sick or –”

“I know what asymptomatic means.”

Sam huffs out a breath. “Anyway, even though beta’s didn’t show any signs of being sick or infected, their bodies still went through a change, though more minor than everyone else. Their scent of smell has shifted slightly, allowing it to be more heightened. There’s something in their blood that we think is just more compatible to whatever ‘virus’. Everyone, regardless of subgender, has either developed some sort of smell or –”

“Wait, what? Subgender? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Er, uh, right,” Sam clears his throat, running a hand through his hair. He takes a deep breath, straightening himself before speaking again. “Subgender is what we are calling the three different types of classifications of effects on the humans. I already told you about beta; basically normal, small changes, but nothing major. Then there is what we’re calling omegas.” Sam gestures towards him.

“Me?” Dean points to himself, nose crinkling as he says the word over in his head. It sounds almost…degrading.

“Given the symptoms you told me about over the last few days, yeah,” he rolls over to the computer on the desk and nudges the screen awake. Sam scans his badge and after a few clicks he brings up a page and scrolls through it, only pausing a little here or there to read something.

“With all the data gathered so far, we have concluded that eighty percent of the older generation, ages roughly sixty on up, didn’t make it through the change. Obviously a others at various age groups passed as well, but mainly the older ones. One hundred percent of all age groups hospitalized that lived through it, their bodies changed drastically.” Sam’s words come out faster as he reads, his excitement growing. “Males becoming omega is rare just like females becoming alphas. So far we’ve concluded that it’s the point-oh-one percent of global population that’s been effected and I –”

“Wait, hang on,” Dean holds up his hand to stop Sam. “Female alpha? Male omega?”

Sam’s eyes narrow just a second before turning back to the screen. “It’ll make sense in a second. Just let me finish.”

Dean sighs and resigns himself to just sitting back and letting his brother talk. He’ll piece it together later. “Anyway, so you’re technically a minority right now. All that can change, of course, as the numbers and more data as it comes in, but as of right now this is the way it appears. You’re lucky you survived after what your body had to go through.”

“Traits of an omega include; slightly raised temperature, more responsive to alpha type carriers, typically emit an appealing sweet type of scent, natural caregivers before and after virus, submissive –”

“What the fuck,” Dean snaps. “I’m not submissive!”

Sam doesn’t even pay him a glance, continuing on like Dean hasn’t even spoken. “Basically omega bodies are considered one hundred percent perfect for bearing, uh, offspring, which is why the alpha’s are seeming to go ballistic when they smell one. I mean, it’s not all the time, but when the omega’s get closer to, um, a certain time when their body kind of…” Dean just stares at his brother watching him turn beat red and gesture dramatically with his hands. “You know.” He coughs and looks back at the computer. “What your body just went through was its way of trying to attract a mate.”

There are no words. Not a damn thing that Dean can think of. His brain seems to be suddenly filled with white static, and where he wants to get angry, call Sam and all the medical research of bunch of bullshit, he remembers when just a day ago how unbelievably desperate he was just to get off over and over again, each time he got off it was if he was missing something. The orgasm never left him feeling that happy afterglow he sometimes got before his body changed. Does that mean it’ll always be like this?

His brother is still yammering away when his brain clicks back on. “ – from what we can tell the ‘knot’ at the base of an alpha’s penis expands inside the omega right before climax, locking them together to ensure the best success for breeding. From what we’ve discovered, the knot takes anywhere from twenty to forty minutes to go down. Basically everyone is just running on instincts not really thinking about their actions. It’s almost like we’ve shifted into some sort of canine type of society, though obviously we’re still humans, but the primal urges and heightened –”

“I can’t have fucking kids.”

He’s heard Sam. All of it. And all that keeps repeating like a broken record inside his head is that omegas are basically suppose to be breeding, submissive bitches. But something has to be wrong, right?

Sam turns around slowly in his chair, blinking his eyes like he forgot Dean was even in the room with him. “I think you docs got something wrong with your research. I mean, look at me! I’m a fuckin’ dude, Sammy! I got a dick and no oven to bake anything.”

Sammy straightens his back and slowly stands up from the stool. Almost in the blink of an eye he watches as his brother’s face shift back into serious doctor mode. Sam walks beside the machine Dean noticed when he first walked in now realizing what it is – a ultrasound machine – and pulls out a bottle from one of the holders.

“Pull your shirt up,” he says clicking and moving things on the computer with one hand.

Dean slowly lays back down on the crinkly white paper, fidgeting with the edges of his shirt. “I told you I feel fine. Breathing hasn’t been short since –”

“Pull. Up. Your. Shirt.” Sam says again, turning his head enough to narrow his eyes at him.

Dean ducks his head and quickly complies. Sam squeezes out a generous portion of the gel on his stomach and Dean has have a second to appreciate the fact that it’s heated before Sam is pushing the wand against the mess, rolling and spreading it out.

Dean cranes his neck to the side looking at the black and white picture on the screen trying to figure out exactly what he’s suppose to be looking at. After a few minutes of Sam pausing to take pictures of random things that must be important to doctors, Sam stills his hand and turns the screen more towards Dean.

“There,” he pushes down on his stomach a little harder, moving slightly lower. “That’s your uterus.”

His eyes flick from the screen back to Sam, then down to where his brother is still holding the wand. There cannot be happening. This is a prank. It’s all just some stupid prank. His brother set this all up, used some poor ladies ultrasound video to try and get him to freak out. That’s all this is.

Dean wants to deny it. He wants to blame Sam, someone, anyone! He wants this all to just be some big mistake. Maybe a bad dream. Maybe he’s still in a medical induced coma and is actually still on a ventilator. That actually seems like the better option than having a…having a fucking baby maker inside him. Where the hell would the kid even come out at?

Dean feels his eyes go wide as the thought hits. At some point during his little freak out Sam had wiped up the gel from his stomach and is sitting there looking at him sympathetically.

“I don’t understand…I don’t…How the fuck…Why?” Dean stammers, shakily pushing himself up on his elbows.

Sam sighs and for the first time in a long time, Dean sees how truly exhausted he really is. Even despite his own internal panicking, he still feels a pull inside him to comfort Sam. He moves without meaning to, sitting sideways on the table, clasping a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Dean gives it a squeeze and offers a comforting smile before pulling away. Sam gives a tight one back, sighing again and rolling his shoulders

“We think it’s so the government – all the government – can control us. I guess no one really knows, but based on the information we have and how the virus was and is being handled, it’s only safe to say that’s why.” He says. “It weeded out the weak and old. Showed who had good genes with immunities against this type of thing among other things like strength. I mean all the alphas assholes you’ve been seeing on the news are only on their because all this is so new and no one has any idea what is going on with their body and how to even start controlling it. We think the scent thing is so alphas and omegas can find exactly who they are most compatible with to ensure the best and strongest offspring.”

He gestures to the computer on the desk. “The few alpha’s I’ve actually got to speak to after an attack say they just caught a whiff of the person, and by person I mean omega, and they couldn’t help themselves or stop. They didn’t even try to find some shady dark alley, they just pinned them up against their car and fucked them.” Sam shudders and looks back at Dean. “That isn’t something I want for you so I got you something.”

“Does this mean you’re beta, or whatever? You never got sick, or you’re immune, right?” Dean says looking at the plastic bottle that almost looks like some sort of cheap roll on deodorant.

Sam hands him the bottle and gives him a sad smile. “Yeah, I guess I am. I want to blame it on being stuck at the hospital during all this, but a handful of the doctors and nurses on staff got affected. Two of them didn’t make it.” He nods to the bottle. “Anyway, this is what we are calling blockers. Kind of what you got sprayed with on your way in, except this you just rub on the spots of your body that secrete the most of your scent.” Sam points to the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, behind his ears and under his arms.

“Those are the main three. We haven’t been able to do much in the way of testing with it yet, but we do realize that when an omega sweats their scent seems to spike. With any alpha or omega, you’re almost able to tell emotions through the scent. Certain smells can get sharper or sometimes smell gets sweeter. It all depends. I mean, I was able to smell an omega pretty well when they were brought in after an attack, so that tells you something.”

“So we aren’t the only ones with this. The rest of the world got hit with this thing too?” Dean asks.

Sam nods. “We aren’t sure exactly how they did it, though spreading it throughout tap water seems more likely. Everyone is in contact with that at some point throughout their day. A lot of scientists are speculating air, but I doubt anyone will ever really know the real reason. Doesn’t really matter anyway. What’s done is done and now all that’s left is trying to figure out how to manage it.”

“But I still don’t get it,” Dean says. “Why does this? Why I get having to pretend it’s a virus to get what they want or whatever, but why infect all of us with _this_?”

Sam shrugs and sticks his hands in the pockets of his white coat. “I don’t know. Like I said, it’s always about control, isn’t it? Based on genetics, those who are just physically more athletic and stronger became alpha. Eventually I’m sure people will have to register their subgender on their drivers liscense, so who’s to stop the government from selecting all the alphas to make a bigger, better, stronger army? To enforce laws by making them all police? And with scent compatibility, everyone will just produce better offspring therefore always improving the genetic line.”

Dean runs a hand down his face. All this information is exhausting. He’s not even sure how he’s mentally taking anything else in. “God you make it sound like we’re all some sort of damn science experiment.”

“But aren’t we?” Sam asks tilting his head at Dean. “This is completely new for everyone and as new information comes it could go smoother or it could just become rougher. Who the hell knows, but only trial and error will work with something like this. We are talking about a whole new species of human, and not just for us, but for everyone. Whatever happened has already happened. You can’t change it or take it away; we can only learn how to deal with it”

Dean slams his fist down on the table. “Fucking lube comes out of my ass, Sammy! You gotta fix that!”

Sam screws up his face. “Ew, gross Dean.”

Sam ends up running a few more tests, one that actually involves swabbing his ass which Sam decides to blessedly call in a nurse to do that part. He’ll still never be able to look at his brother the same way again. There are just some things that should always remain private with family. 

Dean heads back to the apartment feeling half numb and half violated. He puts the blockers on the bathroom sink and just stares at himself in the mirror.

Dean doesn’t think he looks any different. Same face with the same stubble dusting his cheeks. Same green eyes staring back at him. He holds out his hands and flips them over examining them for even the slightest of change. Everything still looks every bit the same as it always has. Finally, Dean lifts up his shirt halfway up. He stares at his chest, his belly not entirely flat (which he completely blames on the amount of crap food he eats at the diner all the time). It all looks exactly the same.

It’s barely noon, but Dean collapses onto the couch face first anyway. The morning has completely drained him, and finding out he’s point-oh-one of the population means he deserves a damn nap. He passes out seconds after his head hits the cushions.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are having a great weekend and staying safe.

Two years have passed since the world went insane.

More is understood about how humans define themselves now. Doctors and scientists have had enough time to figure out that this isn’t going away. Names to what different designations do have, apparently, been chosen and settled. It’s enough to make Dean laugh because as humorous as it is to say “knothead” (a slur for a jackass alpha), it actually feels right on his tongue. Apparently everyone with a PhD has decided that what’s infected them is closely related enough to the canine species that everyone should just adjust and deal with it.

Alphas are able to use a certain tone of voice that triggers something in the omega to submit and obey. Dean has yet for it to happen to him, but he’ll be damned if he ever give into some knotheaded douche bag. Posturing is what happens with one alpha is in the vicinity of another alpha and feels like his territory, mate or pride is challenged. Due to their assertive personality, strength and authoritative nature, alphas are put into positions of power; police officers, firefighters, judges, etc.

They also have ruts once a year, which is pretty much prime time for finding a mate or getting someone knocked up. The ruts usually last anywhere from three to five days depending on a whole bunch of factors Dean hasn’t cared listen or read about. Why should he? He isn’t an alpha.

Fucking betas carry on as mostly human. Their scent of smell is increased, but their anatomy is the same. They don’t submit like an omega, or posture like an alpha. They don’t have ruts or heats, and aren’t scoffed at in public. Sam and the scientists claim that an estimated seventy-five percent of the world’s population is beta.

Dean still remains the oddity; point-oh-one percent of the world’s population. Rare. A mystery.

He hates it.

According to anyone with a white coat, omegas are the ultimate breeders. Yes, that’s the word they choose to use when speaking about them in the newspaper or on the news. On average, a normal omega goes into heat once every two months. Depending on the omega, their heat can last anywhere from three to seven days. Without proper hydration and care, omegas have been known to die.

Omegas, when aroused, leak a type of lubricant the doctors are calling slick. This, apparently, is to prep the area for the alphas knot; therefore making alphas and omegas the perfect matches. Omegas are considered more submissive and with the alphas tone they can use, they are able to control omegas if needed. Even with limited observation and research scientists and doctors still agree that omegas are natural caregivers, and perfect for jobs like nurses, caregivers, daycare providers or teachers.

The kicker of it all is omegas that run and own their own business are _strongly_ advised to consider selling or finding an alpha or beta to take over. Even thinking about selling Bobby’s business to some dick head off the street makes Dean’s blood boil. Just because he got the shit end of the stick doesn’t mean he’s worthless. He’s the same person he’s always been, his ass just leaks when he’s horny now.

On top of the shit end deal omegas have to face, people are still having kids. Beta females and omegas of both genders, the world still spins and life keeps on living. Babies born now seem to need longer with whoever birthed them. Sam says it says something to do with scent bonding. Instead of cradling a baby in the crook of your arm like everyone use to, they seem to crave being snug against their parent’s neck, nearest to where the scent gland is. Due to the babies’ behavior and where their designation names come from, doctors start jokingly calling the babies, pups. It catches on like wildfire.

All in all, it’s getting harder for Dean to remember a time when his designation hasn’t defined him. The blockers that Sam gave him work great. He figured out pretty early on that he’d have to apply them multiple times a day, especially if he was sweating a lot, but he’d take the slight annoyance than being another statistic for the media to ramble on about. Dean even managed to cover up his next “heat” (based off more fucking wolf bullshit Sam said the scientists were calling it) by just calling in sick.

More than that, it helped working around Benny at the garage. They were able to interact with each other almost like they use to, minus Benny getting weird sometimes and posturing when another alpha came in. Dean was able to go to the bars after work always being mistaken for a beta. He even managed to get lucky a few times, bringing a beta female back to his place who was usually too drunk to notice the slick. It always seemed to leave him empty afterwards, though, like he was missing something. Almost like a part of him was incomplete.

Dean can almost remember the exact day his life started to _really_ be affected by being omega. Sam had left him a voicemail apologizing but he couldn’t get him any more blockers and he’d explain over dinner. By the time Sammy got to the diner just down the road from the garage, Dean was starting to get some curious looks from some of the patrons.

Sam gave him a bottle of pills that looked suspiciously like birth control tablets one of his exes use to take. His brother said they are suppressants and they’d help lessen the symptoms of his heat. The blockers (though never really out on the market) are now being considered illegal because they “deceive” others of their true designation.

On top of that news, Sam tells Dean he’s just decided to continue living with Madison and her roommates. He starts explaining about a better commute and how his hours are out of control, but Dean tunes him out.

When he gets home, Dean drinks himself in oblivion.

It only takes a few days after Dean’s off the blockers for it to actually hit him how much of a shit situation he’s really in. He’s at the usual bar he’s been going to since he started working for Bobby, when it happens. He’s been feeling eyes on the back of his neck since he walked in, but refused to give whoever it is the satisfaction in knowing it was getting to him. The feeling starts making his skin crawl enough that when he finishes his second beer, he waves goodnight to the bartender and walks out the door.

Dean barely gets two steps out before someone is grabbing his shoulder, spinning him around. Dean manages to get two good, solid hits in before he’s drug behind the bar, thrown and pinned against the brick wall next to the dumpster. His cheek scrapes across the brick enough that he knows the skin is broken, but he hardly it hardly phases him. He doesn’t stop fighting.

The alpha smells like rotten eggs and his foul breath against the side of his face makes Dean want to vomit. The man’s nasally voice sounds like nails on a chalk board as he calls him things like “my omega bitch”, “next time I want your pretty lips around my knot”. Blood stains the bricks in front of him as he thrashes trying to get the man off of him.

It hurts. His body doesn’t produce any slick

Dean knows the alpha can smell the pain in his scent, but it only seems to turn him on more. Just as quickly as the alpha starts raping him, he pulls out. Dean collapses to the ground, legs unable to hold his weight anymore. He turns just as the alpha starts coming. It hits his face before he can turn away, and he flinches as he feels the sticky warmth land in his hair and neck. He’s thankful for a moment that the man didn’t knot him before the smell of the alpha over him has him retching.

Dean can’t remember how he got home, but only comes back to himself standing naked, underneath the spray of the shower that’s too hot.

Every morning for a week Dean scrubs his skin until it’s raw in the shower. The smell of the man seems to linger now matter how hard he tries to get rid of it. It isn’t until one day, a few days before his heat is due, that he wakes up and doesn’t smell it.

After his heat, he breaks down and tells Sam what happened, asking if std's are still a thing, or if he needs to stop in and get checked. Sam tells him that what happened was called scent marking, and to stop in to the hospital and he’ll check him.

The thought of some random guy having the ability to make him smell like his horrible scent forever has Dean dropping the phone, running to the nearest trashcan and heaving everything he’s eaten in the past twenty-fours out of his body.

Over the first year since the virus Dean could barely stomach listening to any radio station or watch any tv station. It seemed filled with nothing but horrific updates on the deaths, rapes or attacks. Dean chose to wait to either see Sam for his monthly check ups, or a phone call if anything was pressing that he needed Dean to know.

He guesses he was one of the lucky ones who had a family member with inside information. Dean learned about mating bites before the media got a hold of the information and spun it into something more than what it was. Bottom line, if an alpha bites an omega’s neck – specifically where the scent gland is – during sex they are bound together. Something about blood and chemicals that Dean really couldn’t understand, but bottom line is; don’t let anyone bite his damn neck.

Sam’s calls become sporadic, more or less just five minute calls either filling him in with new information or apologizing because a new omega bite victim came in and he has to cancel their weekly dinner plans. To date, none of his new patients want to belong to whoever bit them. The first one they checked into the hospital went through something like withdrawals because she’d been away from the alpha too long. Eventually, her body shut down. Sam is desperately trying to find a way to reverse the blood bond.

And so it goes.

Changes happen slowly. Almost so slowly no one really notices at first. Police officers that usually came in to get their patrol cars tuned up that Dean has known all his life suddenly are gone, replaced by smirking douche bags who gave him a rough time. One day the newspaper that gets dropped off in to the shop for waiting customers to read, announces in big bold letters about two new judges in their town. It doesn’t mention what happened to the previous ones.

By the second year since the virus, their town has their first male omega in labor. It surprises everyone considering the man hid it so well no one knew. It surprises Dean even more because he thought he was the only one around.

Without even knocking, Sam unlocks the door and lets himself in late that night. He’s still wearing his scrubs, and takes a beer from the fridge before collapsing on the couch beside Dean. His brother looks like hell warmed over, and he can’t even bring himself to crack a joke about what if he wasn’t decent. Sam drinks three-fourths of the beer before telling Dean the guy didn’t make it.

“We were too unprepared. I don’t know why – we should’ve been prepared for something like this. I’ve been too busy working with the doctors with the bite patients…We’ve just never had something like this and without even knowing he was pregnant we had no time to prepare!” He sighs and leans his head back against the back of the couch. “I couldn’t save him.”

Dean tries to control his scent, keeping it neutral, but the way his brother’s eyes glance at him he knows he can scent his anxiety and fear. “I’m sure you did what you could, Sammy.”

Sam sighs and shakes his head. “The baby was healthy, appeared to be full term. Defiantly a healthy set of lungs.” He lifts the bottle to his lips before scowling at its empty contents and setting it down on the coffee table with a loud thud. “A few of the nurses tried comforting him. It worked for a few seconds, but the baby kept trying to scent the nurses, probably trying to smell his father…mother…I don’t even know!” He pushes up off the couch and stomps into the kitchen for another beer.

Dean can’t help it. Even if he already knows what the answer is going to be, he blurts out the question. “Did the kid make it?”

Sam pauses, back still turned to Dean. His shoulder slump as he grips the handle to open the door taking out another beer.

“He refused to eat. Died six hours after his…” Sam shakes his head, turning and walking down the hallway to the guest room.

Dean can’t bring himself to walk to his bedroom for a long time after that, and sits there staring at nothing thinking over and over _that could’ve been me_.

As more research and data comes out, everyone seems to absorb it and move about their day. Babies being born are tested right away to see if the virus was passed on to them. Each one of them carries it, but they’re unable to tell exactly what designation they carry. Sam theorizes that the gene lays dormant until probably puberty. Each baby born, though, shows the same basic instincts; scenting, only wanting their parents care (whether that be beta, omega or alpha) for the first few weeks of birth.

Alphas have been settled into positions of power, butting out the omegas. Betas fill in the gaps here and there, but Dean has come to find their ego is just as bad as any alpha the longer they’re around them. Their nice Midwestern town has gone from one of the nicest most boring places on earth, to your standard typical alpha run town. Rape, domestic violence and basically anything involving alpha on omega gets swept under the rug.

New laws have been steadily making their way through the system. Their president ends up being forced from the White House due to his designation – omega – early on. A new president, an alpha that was the senator of some state Dean can’t remember, takes his place. One of the laws forces Dean to sign over his shop to Benny, an alpha, because omegas are now legally unfit to run a business. Benny swears it won’t change anything between them, but by the start of the second year after the virus Andrea just up and leaves one day, taking their daughter with her.

Instead of being sad or upset, Benny channels his emotions into anger. He laughs with the alphas that bring their cars in to get worked on, goes out drinking with them after work and eventually stoops down to their level calling Dean slurs. Dean tolerates it for about five minutes before slamming Benny up against one of the cars they’re working on, reminding him that he may be omega, but that doesn’t make him weak.

“Listen to yourself! This isn’t you!” Dean grips Benny’s shirt tighter and slams him back against the car again. “I was your fucking friend and you were supposed to be different. What the hell would Andrea think?”

Benny’s eyes flash from their usual blue to red in a blink of an eye, and he roughly shoves Dean back. For a moment Dean thinks he’s going to attack him, but Benny turns and storms out of the garage to his truck, peeling out onto the road.

By the end of the day Benny hasn’t come back. Dean is closing up when he smells something that makes him turn his head sniffing the air. It smells like he’s in a forest. Some type of wood he can’t put his finger on…Cedar? Pine? With a hint of honey. Dean knows it’s instantly an alpha but instead of feeling fear his body is seems to almost be pulling him towards the scent. His mouth starts watering and without thinking about it, his feet are taking him towards the open garage door. He manages to stop himself just outside the door staring at a man with dark hair that looks his hands have been running through it too much stands beside an old gold Lincoln Continental. Bright blue eyes stare back at him, crinkling slightly as he offers a small smile.

He stands just in-between the open car door and the front seat as if Dean just caught him getting out. “I turned down this road and my tire blew. Lucky for me, it was right by your garage. Think I could get you to –”

The wind shifts slightly, blowing Dean’s scent back to the man. He can tell the exact moment it hits him. His words cut off, eyes go wide and fingers grip the open door so tightly Dean swears he’s going to leave dents.

They just stand there, staring at each other. Dean knows, even after all this time, male omegas are so rare you hardly ever hear about them let alone see one. Sam figures the percentages are what he estimated the first time. Any alpha that Dean has come across seems to think that fucking him means they’ll win some sort of ego filled prize. Over the past two years Dean’s played this game more times than he can count. Most alphas seem to think because he’s omega that he’ll be easy pray and just submit to whatever they want from him. Each one has quickly learned the hard way that even though that might be his subgender making him a lot of things, weak isn’t one of them.

When the man speaks again, Dean’s so caught up in his head he jumps back a little. Did his voice get deeper? The man raises his hands in a calming gesture but doesn’t move from where he stands. “Listen, I’m not here for any trouble. I just need to get my tire fixed so I can…”

The man’s eyes flutter closed as the breeze takes Dean’s scent back to the alpha again. Dean watches as the dark haired alpha takes in a deep breath, before blinking open his eyes slowly. Dean almost sighs out a relieved breath to see that his eyes are still blue not tinted with red.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” his says in a gravelly voice and fuck if that doesn’t go straight to Dean’s dick. The man takes a few steps back, eyes never leaving Dean. “Keys are in the car, just please, if you can fix my tire so I can get back on the road that would be great. If not, just lock up and I’ll be back and figure it out. I need to…” He waves his hand to the side, stumbling backwards.

Dean blinks, suddenly remembering himself and takes a step forward. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, fix your tire. Shouldn’t be any trouble. I just, ya know, don’t want any trouble.”

The man stops a few good feet away and shakes his head. “No trouble. I swear.”

And fuck if Dean doesn’t believe that to be true with everything in him.

The alpha turns the corner disappearing from Dean’s sight. He stares at the empty corner for a beat before shaking his head trying to clear it.

“Guess all alphas aren’t so bad,” he mumbles to himself walking to the car.

He chuckles at the alphas choice of car as he walks around it to see what he’s going to be dealing with. The color along with the actual car itself looks like the guy is more a of back-in-the-day pimp. Dean’s lips twitch up in a smile, it’s nice to see something that isn’t basically a computer on wheels. As he bends down to look at the tire that brought the guy in he sees the drivers rear tire is flat, but not blown, which is good. Hopefully the man didn’t drive on it too far causing the rim to bend. Dean leans in closer to the wheel and sees that the tire is pretty worn down. Getting up and moving around the car he sees the rest of the tires and sees more or less the same thing. Sighing he walks back to the garage to grab a tire jack and his tools.

By the time Dean everything he needs beside the car, he ducks into the front seat to grab the keys to open the trunk. The alphas forest scent is stronger here, and the underlining honey is so pronounced his mouth starts to water as a moan slips past his lips. He leans closer to the seat, eyes slipping shut and takes in a deep breath. His eyes snap open as a trickle of slick leaks out and he jerks himself out of the car, stumbling backwards nearly falling on his ass.

What the fuck just happened? Panting and trying to slow down his heartbeat that’s pounding in his chest, Dean stares at the car like it just physically bit him. Inside his boxers his dick twitches. He’s never just leaked slick outside of his heat or the rare occasion he finds some beta chick whose okay with him being omega. The alpha smells good – better than most – but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to submit like some bitch and let the guy knot him. Not that it’s a problem, but he doesn’t even swing that way. His heats don’t count, and it’s not like before he became omega that he ever fingered his own ass.

“Fuck,” he groans, running a hand through his hair. What the hell is wrong with him? He knows enough of from what Sammy’s told him and what he hears in the media to know no matter how nice this guy might seem, all alphas are the same.

Dean shifts his feet trying to get his body to listen to his head, but another trickle of slick leaks out and he groans trying to clench his ass tighter like it might actually fucking help. Dean clenches his fists even tighter trying to focus on clearing his head, but it’s almost like a whisper echoing in his mind keeps repeating _matematemate._ This can’t be normal. His brother would have told him if something like this was ever going to happen. Maybe the crap that changed him into an omega is hasn’t finished yet? Maybe there’s something that Sam’s been missing.

Some part of his brain is pulling at him, telling him to just lean back inside the car. One more smell inside the car won’t hurt. Dean takes a step forward, eyes fixed on front seat that just waits for him to lean back in. His feet take him forward as he begins to lean over to duck inside when his foot hits something that clangs against the pavement.

Dean jerks his head up, hitting it on the corner of the doorframe, jumping back. “Sonofabitch!” He yells, rubbing at the tender spot. He slams the door shut and glares at the damn car.

What the hell is wrong with him? This seriously can’t be normal. His heat was a few weeks ago, so it’s defiantly not that. Maybe he’s getting sick? Come to think of it, he hasn’t been sick since he got out of the hospital. Sam had told him something about how his immunity is better at fighting off sickness, but that doesn’t mean he still can’t get sick. That’s probably what it is.

Dean sighs and looks down at his palm that’s tightly gripping the car keys. He steps over the wrench and other tools and goes to the trunk to see if the alpha has a spare. He told the guy he would fix the tire and like hell will he be controlled by his omega status. He’s better than that.

An hour later Dean has put away his tools and has the shop locked up for the night. The sun is just beginning to set, and the cool breeze from earlier has died down into nothing. Dean rubs his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm letting out a breath. It shouldn’t have taken him this long to change one simple tire, but his mind kept drifting back to the alpha’s scent just within an arms length away. He actually managed to jam his fingers a few times, cut two of them and almost accidently drop the jack on himself. No matter how hard he tried to focus, he just became more frustrated and couldn’t get the alpha’s scent out of his head. His stupid omega body kept betraying him and he’s pretty sure his boxers are damn near soaked with slick now.

He looks up and down the street wondering where the guy could have gone. Dean grits his teeth and glances down at his business card with his cell phone number scribbled on the back of it. The guy needs to know that if he doesn’t get four new tires on his car sooner rather than later, he’ll probably have end up in the same situation. Dean isn’t some asshole that is going to not let him know just because of his designation.

He debates putting his card under the windshield wipers, but it’s getting dark and the guy might not see it. Dean’s eyes rest on the door handle of the car. He has to open it anyway to put the keys on the seat, so it makes sense to leave the card with the keys. Just lay them quickly on the seat and close the door, holding his breath shouldn’t be a problem.

Biting his lower lip Dean fidgets with his card before reaching out for the handle. He takes in a deep breath and opens the door leaning in. It’s almost as if his body recognizes that it’s in and around the scent because his heart starts hammering in his chest and the hairs on the back of his neck being to prickle and rise. Dean drops the card on the front seat, and then places the keys on top, pulling back out and shutting the door. He lets all of the breath out in one big gasp, leaning back against the alpha’s car.

He moans as he catches a slight whiff of the cedar and pine honey scent that escapes from the car. More slick leaks out and he doesn’t even bother trying to clench to keep it from happening. It only took the alpha’s scent and his dick is already half hard. Dean pushes his palm against it trying to will it to go away, but the pressure just makes more slick slips out.

Dean’s eyes snap open as sharp whistle followed by laughter from across the road hits his ears. He doesn’t need the group of guys to get close enough to smell to know that they’re alpha’s. Because of course they are. That’s just the way his day is going. He’s such an idiot! He’s out in the middle of the damn parking lot slicking like a bitch in heat completely forgetting that omegas get jumped for just existing, let alone smelling like he does right now.

“Somethin’ smells good boys!” One of them says loudly, but Dean is already moving towards his car.

“Told ya the male bitch worked at this place,” another says. “Bet he’s really good with his hands.”

“Not his hands I’m thinking about,” the first one says. “I wonder what a mouth like his would look like with my knot shoved down his throat.”

The group laughs, footsteps quickly approaching just as Dean reaches his car door and pulls it open. He gets in and flips down the visor catching his keys in his hand as they fall out. He slams the door shut and locks it just as the group of three alphas steps up next to his car.

One with stringy brown hair and a beer gut knocks on his window. “Why don’t you come out of there? I promise we’re just going to have a little fun.”

Dean shoves the key into the ignition and turns it, relaxing slightly when the rumble of his baby hits his ears. He glances out the window to see if the assholes have moved back, but just as his luck would have it, they haven’t. He throws his car in reverse, anyway, and glances out the window just in time to see the three of them jumping back and glaring at his car as he backs up onto the road, putting it into drive and peeling into traffic.

He worries for a moment if they might try vandalizing the garage because he got away. All of Bobby’s hard work in keeping the place up and running only to be destroyed by a couple of testosterone filled assholes. Dean chews on his lower lip debating about going back and maybe just driving by really slowly to make sure the place is still standing. What if they were actually breaking in? Would the cops actually do anything? Dean has no doubt that the group of them would try and spin it on him somehow.

Groaning, Dean decides to leave it for tomorrow, shifting awkwardly in his seat trying to adjust sitting his soaked boxers. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off he realizes he’s itching and rubbing at his skin. He adjusts the collar of his shirt and rolls down the window. Has it been this warm out all day? Sweat starts to trickle from down the back of his neck and he rolls back up the window, cranking up the ac. He taps his steering wheel impatiently waiting for the car in front of him to make a right turn. Dean’s eyes flick back and forth over the traffic as he fiddles with the radio and shifts in his seat again. He feels restless, uncomfortable and like he’s boiling from the inside out, maybe there’s another sickness going around that Sam has forgot to tell him about?

By the time he pulls into his parking spot at the apartment complex, Dean has red blotches over his skin from rubbing and itching at it. He’s just getting out of the car and locking it when a gush of slick comes out. He bites back a whimper as his dick hardens in his pants. Leaning against the doorframe Dean closes his eyes and tries to catch his breath. What the hell is going on? He shouldn’t have his heat again so soon it’s only been a few weeks.

By the time he reaches his door on the third floor, he doesn’t even try covering up the bulge in his pants or the wet spot on his ass. All he can think about is how annoying his clothes are and how badly he needs to get off. Dean lets himself in and before the door can even close his pants are undone, falling to his feet.

He leans his head back against the wall and strokes himself fast and dirty. Slick trickles down his legs and Dean doesn’t muffle the moan that falls from his lips. He closes his eyes and quickens his pace, sweat dripping down his face as he pictures bright blue eyes and unruly dark brown hair.

With a choked off noise his orgasm hits out of nowhere. Dean’s shaky legs wobble before giving out and he slumps to the ground, hand still around his softening dick.

What the fuck was that?

His skin begins to tickle again as his dick twitches in his hand. Dean groans and pulls his hand away, grimacing at the all the fluids covering his body. Whatever is going on with his body he isn’t having a conversation with his brother covered in his own spunk and slick. Shower first and then message Sammy.

Dean pushes himself up, stumbling and toeing off his boots while trying not to fall and touch the wall at the same time. He wants to blame panting and sweat running down his body from the feat, but in the back of his mind he knows what’s going on. Dean finally succeeds and kicks off his soaked boxers and pants, walking towards the bathroom. His dick is already half hard and slick seems to be flowing freely as he turns the water on letting it get warmed up.

This is another heat. Usually he has longer in-between spikes of needing to get off, and with the amount of fucking slick leaking from his ass if he doesn’t get some serious hydration going on he’s going to be back in the hospital. Sighing, Dean turns on the sink and cups his hands drinking a few mouthfuls before stepping into the spray.

Two orgasms and forty minutes later Dean’s sprawled out naked on his bed, chest heaving as he looks around for his phone. Where did he leave it? Dean sits up, wincing as his leg touches a spot of cooling slick on the bed. His body feels like its on fire, and unlike his regular heats, getting off isn’t cooling him down at all.

Dean stumbles to his feet, leaning heavily on his dresser trying to catch his breath when he remembers that his phone is in his pants. His pants that he left by the door, but they might as well be in fucking Texas, his legs feel like Jell-o and he hates himself for not grabbing it before laying down. Remembering what he just did a few moments ago while laying down has his dick twitching between his legs.

“Could you just fucking not for five seconds!” Dean hisses pushing off the dresser and drunkenly walking into the hallway.

With a hand braced against the wall for support, he stumbles and sways towards the door, bumping into the coffee table on his way. Dean kneels down by his pants and tries to fish out his phone, but his fingers feel like noodles.

“Focus!” He yells at himself, shaking his head.

Finally, he grips his phone and pulls it out. He hits Sam’s number and pushes back up to his feet, swaying and trying to catch himself. Stumbling backwards his lower back slams into the side of the kitchen counter.

“Hel–”

“Fuccckk!” Dean hisses.

“Dean? Are you alright? What’s going on?” Sam’s tone drops deeper, full of concern.

Dean shakes his head trying to clear his vision before starting out on the journey back to his room. “Sam listen,” he loses his balance trying to move around the coffee table and feels his body falling to the side. Dean overcorrects and ends up slamming into the hallway wall. “Oof! Damnit.”

“Dean? What the hell is going on? Is someone there? Is –”

“No, fuck, just listen,” he stumbles back into his bed room, pushing the door shut behind him. “I closed up the garage tonight and there was this alpha that showed up with a flat. Before you get any ideas, he didn’t even touch me. He actually ended up leaving his car for me to fix and going on a walk.”

Dean’s knees hit the edge of his bed and he falls down onto it, gasping for air, trying not to think about the coolness coming from his sheets his is dried fluids.

“Okay? So he was a nice guy, statistically speaking it was bound to happen.”

Dean groans as a gush of slick pours out. “His scent, Sammy. I’ve never smelled something like that before. It was like… I had to get into his car and without even breathing it in my body reacted.” He rolls over trying to ignore his hardening dick, hating the fact that he’s having a fucking conversation with his damn brother while any conscious thought is slowly being taken over with the need to rub one out against his sheets.

“Dean, we’ve talked about this before. Alphas find omega’s scent appealing so it is bound to happen that an omega would –”

“You don’t get it! It put me in fucking heat!”

There’s a pause over the phone and wherever his brother is for once its quiet on the other end. Dean almost forgets that he’s on the phone with his brother and doesn’t realize until he’s got his finger circling his rim and jerks it away with another groan.

“You’re in heat now?” Sammy asks slowly.

“It’s not normal, Sammy. It’s not like my usual heats. I can’t…” Dean clenches his jaw embarrassed to tell his brother any of what’s going on with him, but he knows he’s not going to last. It’s too much. “No matter what I do it isn’t enough.”

Sam coughs and clears his throat. Dean’s hips thrust on their own into the sheets. “Did you, uh, buy what I suggest you buy to help with, um, you know?”

Dean tenses his body forcing it to stop since it’s decided to stop listening to him. “I am not having this fucking conversation with my little brother while I’m in fucking heat! I just want you to fucking fix this! Give me something – a pill, something! I feel like my skins on fire!”

“There isn’t anything I can give you! I don’t even know what’s going on. I – ”

Unable to stand it anymore, Dean ends the call and moves his hand back down to his asshole. Without any hesitation he shoves two fingers inside himself and moans. He pumps them in and out a few times but it isn’t enough. Dean slips another finger in and pushes them in deeper. His hips start thrusting into the mattress matching the thrusts inside him.

Frustrated that it still doesn’t feel like enough, Dean adjusts how he’s laying, never stopping thrusting his fingers. He adds a fourth and this time, at the new angle, he hits something inside him that makes him arch his back and let out a cross between a moan and some sort of scream. Dean rubs against the spot again and again, thrusting into the mattress until he feels his orgasm building and building and then he comes harder than he’s ever come before.

Beside him somewhere Dean hears his phone ding, but his eyes start drooping closed. It’s probably only Sam anyway, giving him some sort of bad news. He still feels restless and the tingle of arsoual simmering underneath his skin, but he’s finally sated enough to let his heavy eyelids slip closed. The last thing he remembers hearing before he falls into unconsciousness is his phone ringing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos give me a high. ^_^


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that tags are updated as I'm going. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Sleep lasted for only a few hours before his body demanded release again. And again. And again. By the time the sun was just starting to rise, Dean is so exhausted he can’t even fall asleep. His body shakes as he stares up at the ceiling, silent tears running down his face. His dick stands proud, red and angry being neglected, but he doesn’t have the energy to touch himself. His whole body aches in ways he never thought it could.

Not expecting another heat – or whatever this is – so soon Dean hasn’t had any time to restock on supplies. Instead of having his case of water beside his bed, he has an empty cup from who knows how long ago and not enough energy to refill it. His phone dings again with another message. It’s been doing that all night, but he hasn’t had the energy or the want to check it. Maybe Sam actually found something but doesn’t want to come over and be traumatized?

Dean rolls over and reaches out a trembling hand for his phone. His fingers are shaking so badly he has to try his password three times before he unlocks it.

Three missed calls from the same phone number he doesn’t recognize, a message from his brother checking in that he’s not dead and five messages from that number again.

_7:14pm >>Hello Dean. I hope it isn’t too late messaging you, but you left your number on your card._

_7:21pm >>My name is Castiel, you helped me with my flat tire earlier this evening. I just wanted to thank you for helped me out, and apologize for my actions. _

_8:24pm >>I just tried calling you. Without coming off as sounding strange, I felt it in my gut that something wasn’t right and I needed to check in. If I am bothering you, please just let me know and I can stop._

_9:23pm >> I don’t know what is happening, but I need you to call me back._

_11:47pm >> Dean please_

The last time the alpha – _Castiel_ – called was around three this morning. Not even thinking about it, Dean redials the number. It rings once, twice, three –

“ _Dean_.”

His name on the alpha’s tongue sounds like the most pornographic thing Dean has ever heard. As if his name itself was a command, a whimper slips past his lips as slick falls out of him as his skin begins to prickle.

“I didn’t know if you’d call back. I…Oh God,” Did the alpha just fucking growl? He closes his eyes tight as he shivers and feels himself baring his neck in response. It’s like all the control he’s been fighting with his body tonight the alpha has complete control over with just the deep, rough tone of his voice.

“Alpha, please,” Dean doesn’t even know what he’s begging for as he whimpers again. In the back of his head he knows submitting to an alpha like this is something he swore he would never do, but another part of his mind is whispering _matesubmitmate_

“When I saw you today I didn’t think… And then I smelled you and it was like my body just knew. I’ve never smelled anyone who smelled so good and a scent like yours before, but something in me just knew – ” A low growl rumbles over the phone and Dean moans.

“I need to see you. Can I see you? I need – fuck – I have to see you, please Dean,” Castiel’s breath comes out in pants and Dean’s hazed filled mind wonders what it would feel like with the alpha’s body over him, his deep voice vibrating against his skin as he says his name over and over again while pumping him full of –

“Alpha,” Dean moans as he grabs onto his cock and slowly starts jerking himself. “Need you. Want you. Can’t stop thinking about you. You gunna come fill me up? You gunna mark me as yours?”

He hears a loud thud over the phone and the alpha swearing and mumbling under his breath. “Are you touching yourself?”

“Yes,” he breathes thumbing the head of his cock.

“Are you picturing me? My hand wrapped around that gorgeous cock as I watch you fall apart while I lick every drop of slick falling out of your body just for me.”

His body responds by leaking more slick from his hole as he arches off the bed into his hand, pumping fast. His shortened breaths come out saying the alpha’s name as his toes curl, the heat building inside him, but it isn’t enough. Dean adds more pressure, he’s right on the edge and just needs a little more of…of…

“Oh fuck, I wish I was there. I bet you look gorgeous, face flush and laying out for me to see – for me to worship. Oh yeah, fuck yes. That’s it. Come for me. I want to hear you coming with my name on your lips. Come for me, Dean.”

As if his body was just waiting for Castiel’s command, his body lets go and he’s coming so hard with the alpha’s name on his lips that his vision whites out. Slowly, as if all this has been some sort of dream, his consciousness seeps back in.

“Dean, I need your address. I need to get over there, now,” Castiel says. Instead of it sounding demanding, though, it only sounds like desperation. By the tone, Dean wonders if it’s his mind playing tricks on him or if the alpha sounds like he’s in pain.

Without any hesitation, he says,“413 Chestnut Avenue. Apartment 317.”

“I’m already on my way.”

The call goes dead and for a moment Dean lays there smiling to himself, just soaking in the fact that his body is finally at some sort of peace.

And then it hits him what he’s just done.

He just got some random alpha is address. Some random alpha who is on his way over to stick his dick in his ass and knot him.

Panic sets in as Dean jolts up from the bed looking around for anything he can use as a weapon. What the hell was he thinking? He’s never been into guys. Not once since before the virus has he, Dean Winchester, ever swung that way. Using his own fingers to get off doesn’t count; he’s made peace with the fact that his omega side needs something like that, but that doesn’t make him gay, that’s just him. Even when that alpha in the alley had him pinned against that brick alley his body didn’t even respond like a normal omega should.

If he calls Castiel back and backs out on this whole thing, is he going to get mad and come over anyway? Dean pushes himself up onto his shaky legs to clumsy walk across his bedroom to the closet, looking for anything that might help defend himself. Dean decides that no matter how badly his stupid omega hormones are responding to this alpha, he’s not going to go through the pain of being raped again. Even with his heat being this bad, he’s got enough sense right now to know that if he can’t slick for Castiel he’s probably going to get mad. Really mad. Alpha’s on a good day are assholes, but during rut? That has to be the reason Castiel sounded so desperate on the phone. He needs an omega and what better than one who willingly gave him his phone number.

Dean shivers as he shifts around clothes and old boxes of random things but sees nothing that could be used to defend himself from the alpha. Placing a hand on the wall for support, he makes his way to his door. He’ll just have to use a kitchen knife or something. His regular knife he carries around with him when he goes out is back in his car, and like hell if he’s stepping out of his apartment like this.

Dean manages to get himself to the hallway before he hears the door opening. His body tenses as the alpha steps in and heat or not, Dean kicks himself for not even thinking to lock it when he got home. The alpha’s – Castiel, he reminds himself – hair looks even more messy than yesterday. Stubble dusts his face and his clothes look wrinkled and haphazardly thrown on. But his eyes, his bright blue eyes Dean remembers from yesterday, are ringed with red so dark that Dean swears parts of them look purple.

And the scent, oh God, his scent smells even better than yesterday if that’s a possibility. Cedar and pine with the honey almost so strong that Dean swears he can taste it on his tongue – he _wants_ to taste it on his tongue. There’s something more, though. Something mixed into the scent that wasn’t there before but he can’t put his finger on it. Any tension he is carrying suddenly loosens and slips away as he takes in a deep breath. His head starts to go hazy again as he takes in another deep breath of the alphas scent. Why is he standing in the hallway? Wasn’t there something he was trying to get?

Castiel’s eyes never leave him as he slowly closes the door and locks it. In six confident, steady strides he is across the room and he and his scent surround Dean and his personal space. Their bodies seem to almost mold into each other as Castiel presses his body closer into his. Without any pausing or hesitation, Castiel presses his lips into his, licking his way into his mouth.

Dean moans at the taste, opening up his mouth and chasing Castiel’s tongue for more. The alpha pushes Dean back until the coolness of the wall presses against his back. He breaks the kiss, turning his head to the side. Castiel nips and kisses over his jawline causing Dean to let out a whine from the back of his throat. The alpha’s stubble scrapes against his own but instead of being turned off by it, it almost feels like electricity vibrating over his skin everywhere the alpha touches. It feels amazing.

“Ah, Cas,” Dean pants, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to focus on actual words instead of sinking to the ground taking the alpha in his mouth. Mm, he wonders if he tastes as good as he smells.

Dean bears his neck more for him as the alpha nips and sucks all the way down his until stopping and licking a long stripe across his scent gland. Another whine comes out from somewhere inside his throat as his legs begin to shake. Castiel growls; a low, rumbling in his chest that vibrates against Dean making slick leak out of him faster.

“You smell amazing,” Castiel says in between hot, wet kisses against his scent gland. “I’ve never –”

“Need you. Now, please, alpha. Please,” he begs, finally moving his arms for the first time and wrapping them around the alpha’s neck pulling him closer.

Their bodies flush against each other, Castiel nips and sucks at the scent gland once more, making Dean’s back arch off the wall. His whole body begins to shake as the alpha sucks and nips harder. Dean thrusts against Castiel only to be met with the rough feel of denim against his cock. It only hits him then that he’s completely naked and the alpha hasn’t even tried to rid himself of own his clothes.

Dean blinks, trying to focus and collect his thoughts enough to make sense of why he’s standing in the hallway, completely naked. What was he trying to do? A warning in the back of his head is telling him that this is wrong, but the alpha hands slid down to his ass, squeezing hard enough Dean knows it’ll bruise. The thought alone of the alpha leaving a mark on him has him turning his head back and pushing his lips back against Castiel’s like his life depends on it. Everywhere Castiel has kissed him seems to be buzzing with electricity. His body feels like it’s vibrating and as their tongues rub against each other again. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

Dean feels his legs giving out underneath him, but instead of falling, the alpha lifts him up, and Dean breaks the kiss enough to pant for air and wrap his legs around Castiel’s waist. Never in his life has Dean ever thought another guy lifting him up and carrying him back into the bedroom could be so fucking hot.

Dean leans down and kisses along the alpha’s neck, breathing in deeply as he gets closer to his scent gland. When his lips touch the spot, Castiel moans, fingers digging deeper into his skin. Dean has to bite back his own noise and instead begins sucking into the area, tongue rubbing along the area as he feels himself being laid down on his cool sheets.

The warmth of the alpha disappears so suddenly Dean can only lie there, blinking up at the ceiling before realizing what happened. He pushes up on his elbows to see Castiel already shirtless, unbuttoning his pants as he toes off his shoes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says stepping out of his pants. “Just look at you, chest flushed, eyes golden for your alpha. You were already so hard when I walked in. Couldn’t wait for me to get to the bed and had to meet me by the door, right? ”

Eyes, what? His eyes aren’t golden they’re green. And he wasn’t going to meet him at the door he was looking for something. He was –

Dean feels his eyes go wide as he remembers why he was in the hallway. He was headed for the kitchen to get a knife to defend himself, but instead he ended up welcoming the alpha with open arms. Literally.

The bed dips down as Castiel kneels on the edge beginning to crawl back over Dean again. He scoots backwards, but Castiel just follows him until Dean’s head hits the headboard. “Wait, listen. This is going to sound bad but– oh fuckk!”

The alpha kisses the inside of Dean’s thigh, working his way up. His legs open wide without his consent, inviting the alpha in – closer. The alphas scent grows thicker, woodsier; Dean cannot get enough of it. He can feel the slick seeping out of him, soaking into his already ruined sheets. It must look disgusting, which makes Dean wonder what kind of an alpha this is. Is it just because he’s a male omega? Some sort of conquest?

He looks down to see Castiel slowly kissing his way up his thigh, almost so close to his cock he could touch it. His hips thrust up into nothing as the alpha chuckles with that deep, low tone that sends shivers all over. Dean’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly as the fight and questions get slowly swallowed down. He looks down at the man mouthing his way closer to his leaking hole and cannot help thinking how handsome he is.

“You’re so wet for me – so perfect. You smell…You smell divine,” Castiel says kissing anywhere but where Dean wants those lips. “Mm, I bet you taste as good as you smell.”

Without warning, or Dean realizing exactly what those words mean, the alpha grabs a hold of his cheeks and spreads them. Dean opens up his mouth to stop him, but Castiel’s hot, wet tongue swipes at his hole and he can only knock his head back against the headboard, mouth open with a silent scream of pleasure. His hands tangle themselves in Castiel’s dark hair, pulling him closer to his hole. The alpha hums, the vibrations only making Dean squirm underneath him.

Dean gasps as he feels Castiel’s tongue slip past his rim, but the warmth is quickly joined with something more solid – his finger. For a moment Dean tenses, thoughts flooding back to that night in the alley, but the alpha sucks hard before starting to thrust his tongue and finger in unison. Dean lets out a cry, gripping the hair tighter, rocking his ass against the alpha’s mouth. It feels beyond incredible. All his senses seem to come alive, as the alpha spears him open, making the most obscenely wet noises.

The alpha’s tongue starts flicking and twisting as Dean feels another finger slip in. He moans loud, legs shaking as he tries to spread them farther. The loud, wet noises from the alpha fucking devouring him like a man starving should not be as hot as they are, but Dean cannot remember ever being this turned on that his mind can’t seem to process any coherent thoughts. He can feel more slick leaking out of him, past the alpha’s lips, Castiel’s fingers making the filthiest noise as they pull out momentarily before entering again, but this time with one more digit.

Dean cries out, letting go of Castiel’s hair, hands reaching up to the headboard and gripping it tightly. His chest heaves as he tries to remember that he really should be focusing on breathing as his eyes slowly look down to see two bright, alpha red eyes staring up at him through long, dark eyelashes. The honey scent spikes as their eyes meet, and Dean cannot help but wonder again what the alphas cock tastes like. The alpha doesn’t stop thrusting his fingers into Dean, but pulls his mouth back from his hole with one last lick. His mouth and chin glistens and drips with slick. It looks so damn pornographic seeing his own slick covering the alpha – claiming the alpha – that Dean is leaning halfway to Castiel before he realizes it. Something deep inside him needs to feel Castiel’s lips on him so desperately he doesn’t care what that might mean. He doesn’t care about anything except this burning need to feel the alpha touching him in any way possible. Castiel gives one last thrust of his fingers before pulling out, making Dean pause inches from the alphas lips and whines, suddenly feeling so empty it physically hurts. Did he do something wrong? 

Castiel’s eyes darken, as he quirks an eyebrow at him. He scents the air before leaning his head against Deans, slowly moving them back until Dean is lying flat against the bed again. Castiel holds himself up over Dean, panting and searching his face with an emotion Dean doesn’t understand. The omega side of him has all but taken over and all that keeps whispering through his mind now is _mateminemate_. He knows he should be doing something right now, but his mind is too foggy to really care or bother with worrying about it. Castiel’s scent smells like comfort, love and home. He wants to wrap himself up in it and never leave. But more than that, his skin burns with an all consuming need to be filled up by his alpha. He doesn’t know how he knows it, but somehow he just _knows_ that Castiel is the only one who can make everything go away.

Dean looks down between them as he feels something larger than a finger pushing against his hole. He sees Castiel’s hand wrapped around his own cock guiding it to his entrance and holy shit, there is no way that is going to fit in him! He opens his mouth to say something, but the words die on his tongue as Castiel pushes the head of his cock in, in one torturously slow movement.

Dean’s eyes snap shut, jaw clenching, as he feels his whole body tensing, waiting for the pain to start. He waits for Castiel to move, thrust into him, the slick to stop flowing, or even Castiel’s scent to change to rotten eggs. Dean feels the alphas fingers lightly touch his cheek and his eyes snap open to see two red, worried eyes looking down at him.

“Are you okay?” He whispers, his thumb rubbing along Dean’s jaw. “Did I hurt you?”

Is he okay? Dean waits for the feeling of panic to hit him, but nothing comes. Just the tingling from the alpha’s touch that almost seems to be calling for the alpha. But more importantly, he recognizes for the first time since they’ve touched that his body feels almost incomplete without that touch.

Instead of responding, Dean smirks and moves his hips just enough that Castiel hisses above him, glaring down at him. “Move, alpha.”

Not being needed to be told twice Castiel slowly, oh so slowly, pushes into him. Dean wraps his arms around his alpha’s neck, and despite Castiel having stretched him, it wasn’t enough. It burns, but not like it did back in the alley. This type of burn feels like nothing he’s ever felt before – it feels good. Dean can feel himself being stretched and at first it almost seems like too much. When Castiel finally bottoms out, both of them panting, eyes locked on one another. Castiel’s eyes search his, his face growing soft. Honey, cedar and pine are so thick in the air Dean’s mouth waters at the sweetness over his tongue. The longer Castiel looks down at him the more sweet the honey scent becomes. Dean feels his heart beating faster because he knows that look he bets ten dollars he thinks he knows what the alphas scent means.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying clear his head. What the hell is he doing? Why can’t he think straight? This isn’t him! Castiel pulls back, just barely pulling out of him before pushing back in.

All the air leaves his lungs as Castiel moves again and again. He feels like he’s drowning in all the sensations and emotions flooding his body at once, and all he can do to try and survive is just keep hanging onto him. His alpha’s lips find his again, and they exchange breathy kisses until Dean can do nothing more than just breathe against the Castiel’s lips.

Even though they’re chest to chest it doesn’t feel close enough. Dean’s cock lays heavy between their bodies, neglected, smearing pre-cum, twitching, desperately searching for friction.

Dean lifts his legs to wrap around Castiel’s, and as he’s adjusting the angel, his alpha rocks into him at just the right spot making Dean scream out his name. Castiel pauses for a moment before catching Dean’s eye. Staring up at him he watches at whatever hold Castiel has on his alpha, snap. He reaches behind him, grabbing onto to Dean’s legs, helping hold them up as he snaps his hips forward again, rubbing against the spot inside him that makes his body ignite with pleasure he’s never felt before.

“Fuck yes! Right there!” Dean gasps, rocking his hips trying to meet Castiel thrust for thrust. “Cas! Cas! Yes, fuck, alpha, right there!”

Dean feels Castiel’s hot breath on his neck again and moves his head to the side so his alpha can reach it better. “You feel so good. Yes, right there. Fuck Cas, you feel so good. So fucking big. So fucking perfect. Don’t stop. Don’t . Fucking. Ahhhh!”

Castiel mumbles something against his neck followed by that low growl that makes Dean’s body shudder. The alpha thrusts faster and harder and all Dean can do is tighten his hold onto him, feeling the heat building and building up inside him. Castiel licks a stripe over his scent gland that has Dean moaning out his name, almost like plea for the alpha to let him come.

Instead of hearing the alphas voice, Dean feels something sharp, almost like a beesting, pressing against his scent gland. Before he can even question it, the pressure increases and pleasure explodes throughout his body so unexpectedly he feels like it’s going to burst with it. Dean feels something catching at his rim and rocks up into it. He moans feeling Castiel’s knot catch and rub against that perfect spot, making his body lock up. He clenches around the alpha as the heat that’s been licking at his skin ignites. He feels Castiel thrust once more and then freezes, coming inside of him at the same time Dean tenses, coming untouched between them as the mind-blowing pleasure coursing through his veins carrying the heat out of him.

With a sigh, his eyes slip close as he basks in the alpha’s warmth as he lays them down on their sides. Slow licks against his scent gland have him sighing, completely content with being taken care of in this moment. Dean takes in deep breath trying to get a hint as to what Castiel is feeling, but notices how his forest scent now seems to be mixed with something that smells like wet earth after a rainstorm. He takes in a deeper breath, trying to figure out what he’s smelling, and catches a slight whiff of honey, but more like it’s mixed with something like tea. Green tea?

Dean’s eyes snap open as he pulls away from Castiel. They both hiss, looking down at the same time and bumping heads.

“What the fuck!” Dean snaps, rubbing his head.

“I – I – I don’t – I didn’t mean to – ” Castiel stammers trying to push himself back as much as he can with them being tied together.

It’s only then that Dean sees the alpha’s lip glistening with red. His ears start ringing, and even though Dean can see Castiel’s lips moving and his frantic expression, he can’t hear a word that’s being said. Slowly he brings up his hand, tipping his head to the side, and touches the side of his neck. Dean winces a little as his fingers touch his scent gland and brings his fingers up in front of his face.

All he can see is his bright red blood smeared over his finger tips.

Nothing else registers for Dean. An alpha bit him. He actually let himself get so heat drunk that he willingly let some random fucking alpha knot him and claim him!

He drops his hand and looks up at the alpha’s panicked face. The emotion doesn’t match what Dean was expecting, but regardless the guy should be scared. He’s pissed. Beyond pissed. He’s what he swore he would never become and it’s all because of this guy laying beside him with that has his dick shoved up his ass.

The ringing in his ears is slowly replaced with Castiel fumbling out apologies. Dean just lays there, glaring at him, unable to move away.

“I don’t know what happened. I got to my hotel and then my rut came out of nowhere. I’m not due for one for months, and all I could think about what your scent and – and – fuck, this isn’t helping,” Castiel mumbles running a hand through his hair. “I had this feeling in my gut all night that something wasn’t right. The alpha inside me kept telling me to find you. You weren’t answering your phone and even though you were probably sleeping, I had this feeling that…”

“Let me get this straight,” Dean says trying to move back further. The movement has Castiel’s eyes squeezing shut as he groans, dick twitching inside Dean as he comes again. Dean bites down on his lip from letting a moan slip out. _Not the fucking time, Winchester!_ “You caught my scent, felt something was wrong with some guy you barely said a few words to, and found it your life’s mission to try and save me from whatever doom your alpha thought I was in?”

Castiel pants as his eyes blink back open changing from unfocused to narrowing back at him. “And instead of ignoring my calls or messages you called me. Obviously you were in heat, which was why when we met your scent had such an affected –”

“I had my heat a few weeks ago, jackass,” Dean snaps.

Castiel’s eyes harden their look. “So you’re saying this is my fault?”

“Well I ain’t sayin’ I’m the one who caused it! You pulled into my fuckin’ garage –”

“I had a flat tire!”

“And instead of acting like a real alpha, you tucked tail and ran away!”

Castiel sits up suddenly, knot pulling at Dean’s hole before popping out with a wet noise. Dean hisses in pain, eyes snapping up at meet the alpha’s cold stare. He grimaces as he feels their warm fluids trickling out his, now, sore hole. Hopefully the asshole hasn’t seriously hurt something pulling out like that.

“You’re such a fucking asshole! Your knot wasn’t even down yet!”

“It was down enough to get the fuck out of some like you!” He snaps, pushing himself off the bed. “Putting this all on me like I’m the one who started this! You called me while jacking off on the phone! You gave me your address! You left the door unlocked and stood waiting for me in the hallway naked, dick hard and covered in slick! I may be strong enough to say no to a lot of things, but even the strongest of men would have a hell of a time walking away from omega that invited them into their home, naked and waiting, the whole place smelling like sex!”

“You know what, this is stupid,” Dean mumbles crawling to the edge of the bed. “Get the fuck out of my house!”

He pushes himself up and manages to stand for all of about five seconds before he feels like everything starts spinning, his legs refuse to hold his weight and black stars black out his vision. Steady warm arms catch him before his body hits the ground, and he feels himself being laid back down on the bed as his vision slowly comes back. He swats weakly at Castiel’s hand on his forehead earning a huff from the alpha.

“When was the last time ate something?” Castiel asks digging around in his nightstand. “Have you drank anything since yesterday?”

Dean groans, rolling slightly off the wet spot on the bed. “I don’t know, yesterday at lunch maybe? I wasn’t really expecting to get hit with this again, so no. I didn’t drink as much as I should.”

Without another word Castiel takes the empty glass from the nightstand and pads out of the bedroom buck ass naked. Dean doesn’t even have the strength to yell after him to get the fuck out of his house, again. All the yelling seems to have zapped all his energy from him.

Castiel comes back with a full glass of water and a fruit bar, placing them both on the nightstand before bending over to help Dean sit up. He hands him the cup and slowly unwraps the bar, eyes flicking to Dean.

“It’s all I could find,” he says clear his throat and ripping open the package and holding it out for him. “Do you have anything else?”

Dean shakes his head picking up the fruit bar and nibbling a little off the end. He feels his face scrunch up when all he can taste is cardboard and tosses it over onto the nightstand. He takes the cup of water in both of his trembling hands and takes a sip. Thirst hits him out of nowhere, and he tips the cup back gulping it down in four big swallows.

He licks at the water dripping down his chin, watching as Castiel’s eyes track the movement. He sheepishly glances up at the alpha who is looking softly down at him. “Uh, thanks, I guess. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.”

Castiel slips the cup from his fingers, placing it back on the nightstand. “You need to be more careful or you’ll become severely dehydrated. Do you usually slick this much?”

“Hey man!” Dean snaps. “Don’t you think that’s a little personal?”

Castiel’s face reddens as he looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just want to make sure that this is normal for you and not a reason to worry.”

Dean glances down at the stale looking fruit bar feeling his stomach twist unpleasantly inside him. “I guess, um, not normal. But, ya know, it’s fine.”

Castiel looks back at him, holding his hands up in a nonthreatening way. “No judgment by any means,” he lowers them as his eyes dart around the room like he’s looking for something. “Don’t you think you should’ve prepared better for your heat? You don’t even have any type of protein bars or any type of substance.”

“Like I told you already, I already had my heat a few weeks ago. No fucking clue what this is.” He narrows his eyes back at the alpha. “How the hell do you know what I should or shouldn’t have? Last time I checked omega care wasn’t up there on the list of alpha strengths.”

Castiel looks surprised for a moment before his blue eyes grow soft. Dean lets out a breath, relaxing slightly as he notices the alpha red is only ringing just outside of his blue, barely noticeable. “Ruts are rough on our bodies as well. Maybe not as frequent and messy, but equally as exhausting.”

Dean huffs out a breath, leaning back against the headboard. “Well aren’t we just a pair.”

Silence stretches between long enough that Castiel begins shifting awkwardly, almost realizing just now that he’s naked, hands trying to subtly covering himself.

“Dean, I just want to say –”

“Stop.” Dean holds up a hand, giving him a cold stare. “You’re not going to say shit. You don’t get to say shit!”

“But –”

“I’m going to call my brother and he’s going to fix this. I don’t care if you feed me breakfast in bed, I ain’t some omega bitch that you can use just to stick your knot in. Sorry to break it to you pal, but I’m not into guys, so whatever is going on between us can’t be a real thing.”

Dean watches as Castiel face wrinkles in confusion. “Wait, what?”

Heat spreads over his face as he ducks his head to hide it. At least it’s just being embarrassed and not his heat amping up again. He fidgets with some crumbs that have fallen on the bed from the fruit bar and clears his throat. “Before the hormones or whatever morphed me into some sort of freak, I never even thought of being with a guy. I get the omega needs different things or whatever, but that’s what these are for.” He lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers watching the flush over Castiel’s face to become more pronounced. “Now this, or us, or whatever, isn’t something that I do. Not that I have a problem with anyone who’s gay or anything, but it just isn’t who I am. It’s just because of my heat.”

Dean feels the pressure of Castiel’s eyes and glances up at him. The alpha is squinting down at him, face completely blank otherwise. Dean subtly scents the air, but doesn’t pick up on anything other than a hint of honeyed green tea and wet forest earth. There’s something calming their scents mingling together that stills something in him. He hates that he loves it. 

“I’ve been a police officer ever since the virus hit, so what you’re saying is news for me.” He clears his throat, posture suddenly changing and becoming stiffer. Dean wonders if it’s an alpha thing or a cop thing. Maybe both. “After the virus, I’ve seen a lot of things; a lot of things that didn’t make sense yet. One thing I do remember is coming across a female omega that still preferred the company of other females. Their subgender never changed her preference, though it’s considered wrong if it’s not with an alpha female, but that’s missing the point.” He rolls his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “My point is, even if you became beta or alpha, it wouldn’t change your sexual preference. Your subgender changes hormonal things and your body a little bit, but really it just enhances your already there urges and desires. As for all the other things…”

He shrugs and looks back at Dean. “You are who you’ve always been, I’d imagine. Your ‘wants’, so to speak, are just more demanding. Whether you have realized they were there or not, I don’t know. I’m not you. All I can say is what I’ve seen firsthand and experienced. Maybe being one of the few with a stronger designation just opened up those thoughts or feeling you were keeping locked up?”

Dean is torn between trying not to smile at the alpha’s dorky air quotes and screaming at him that he’s wrong. He’s always craved women and never had any problem getting it up. What _is_ the problem now is how he took one whiff of this guy – this stranger – and now he’s suddenly being labeled as gay? This can’t be right.

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. He isn’t even sure how to argue this. Does his omega status really have that much power over his body? Castiel gives him a sympathetic look before clearing his throat again and picking up the empty glass from the nightstand, turning and walking out of the room. “I’ll just get you some more. Are you…are you good?”

Dean’s voice comes out strained, giving the alpha a small smile. “I’m good, Cas.”

Castiel’s lips quirk at the nickname. “My friends back home use to call me that.” He looks down at the empty glass, spinning it in his hands for a beat before looking back at Dean. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

He snorts and nods his head. “You’ve just had your dick up my ass. Pretty sure it doesn’t get much more personal than that.”

The alpha coughs, the flush across his cheeks spreading down his neck and across his chest. Huh, that’s not very alpha like. Aren’t they suppose to be assholes without a caring bone in their bodies? This one seems to be more open with his feelings than even the typical beta. Maybe that’s what’s going on. Cas is empathizing with him too much and it brought on whatever the hell this is.

The being with a guy thing, well that’s a whole other thing. Technically alphas and omegas are just suppose to be together for the “good of the world” or some bullshit. Couldn’t it just be their other halves calling out to each other and not necessarily it being him? Maybe their bodies are just really compatible or something.

“How long before your heat spikes again?”

Deans eyes narrow as his hands tighten into fists. His scent must change enough that Castiel starts to look nervous. “Why? You think we’re going to go at it again?”

“Dean, please just –”

“Nope! Sorry buddy, I’m not letting you fucking touch me again. You forget you fucking bit me?” Dean tilts his neck to the side, ignoring the twinge of pain and points at the mark. “Getting me a glass of water ain’t gunna change my mind about you being in my damn house. I want you out!”

“You aren’t hearing me! You can’t go through this heat alone! It’s going to –”

“Listen alpha,” he says sarcastically. “I’ve been dong this alone since this shit show started and I don’t need some alpha just looking to claim me as a prize come in –”

“You’re going to die!”

The alpha voice instantly makes Dean feel like his throat as closed, lips pursing tightly as he fights with himself before tilting his head to the side to expose his neck. He grits his teeth, hating himself to submitting before jerking it back up and glares back at the alpha. Judging by the look on Castiel’s face he already knew how pissed he was just by his scent.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we seemed to have set off each others cycles. Whatever that means,” he runs a hair through his just-fucked disaster of hair, sighing. “I’m sorry I bit you. It wasn’t my intention. Ever. I don’t know what I was doing or what I was thinking, and honestly until you started to pull away I had just come back to myself and – ” He sits on down slowly on the edge of the bed.

Dean hasn’t even noticed him getting closer. Weird. The guy moves like a fricken ghost when he wants to. Cas reaches out a hand, lightly setting it over Deans. His skin tingles at the touch and he yanks it away.

“This isn’t who I am, Dean. I don’t let my alpha come out or run the show ever. I can’t let something like that happen because of my job. I defiantly don’t use it to harass and intimidate omegas. I think I’ve only ever used my alpha voice three times, and all of them have been unintentional. I’m not better than you. I’m just a person, just like you.”

Dean can smell his own scent as it sharpens, and he swears if he could stand up without passing out he would throw the alpha out the door himself. “You expect me to believe that bullshit! I ain’t buyin’ anything you’re sellin’, buddy! I don’t know if you’ve been livin’ on planet Earth lately, but I have yet to meet one level headed, rational headed alpha – let alone one trying to bullshit me into submitting right after he bit me.”

“I wouldn’t bite you!” He yells, voice cracking. “Not in my right mind. My rut was…is….I don’t even remember driving over here, or really, talking to you on the phone. It’s all just bits and pieces here or there, but for the most part I had no fucking control over what my alpha was doing! All I kept thinking about was your scent and then I walked in here and, oh my God, it felt like I was coming home.” His eyes slip close as he takes in a long deep breath, lips twitching with a smile.

Dean wants to believe him. Hell, he thinks that the omega in him already does by all the whining it’s doing inside him. Dean rubs the middle of his chest, chewing on the bottom of his lip letting himself wonder about an alpha taking care of him.

But that’s just it. It’s _some_ alpha – some stranger – that would be taking care of him. Cas is literally some stranger from off the street. He’s already bit him, and by what Sam says that means they have some sort of weird blood bond thing going on. This alpha has all the power to control him, and why wouldn’t he take that power and run with it? Nobody wants some smart mouthed, stubborn, unruly omega. Nobody wants to be around someone that all they will do is fight because they refuse to be raped.

But it wasn’t rape. He actually enjoyed it. Hell, if he’s being honest, it was the best sex he’s ever had in whole damn life.

Dean fidgets thinking about the alpha’s – no, _his_ alpha’s – cock inside him again. Almost against his will, his eyes trail down Castiel’s toned chest, pausing on those fucking beautiful pronounced hipbones. Slowly they skim the rest of the way down until they reach the patch of dark hair where Castiel’s half hard cock lays against it. The honeyed green tea scent grows heavier around them as Dean licks his lips watching his alpha’s cock hardening and twitching to life underneath his gaze.

Dean’s skin begins to prickle letting him know he’s being watched again. He licks his lips; mouth watering as he almost has to bite back a whimper as he drags his eyes away. He looks back up at Castiel and sucks in a sharp breath seeing red slowly seeping back into the blue. Despite internally yelling at himself and tensing his body under his alpha’s eyes, slick begins to trickle out, once more soaking into his damp sheets. Castiel’s eyes dilate, the blue completely disappearing, but instead of feeling afraid or angry, it’s like his body is seems to only call out for him.

“Dean, I don’t know if I can,” Cas squeezes his eyes shut tightly, face screwed up in concentration. Slowly they open again, a little of the blue has returned. “If I wait any longer to leave I might not be able to. Please, you have to tell me what you want me to do. I don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue what he wants Castiel to do. He wants to tell the alpha to shove it where the shine don’t shine and get the fuck out of his apartment. But his mouth refuses to speak any of those thoughts out loud. He shakes his head trying to clear his mind and to get it together, but the haziness from before is rolling in quicker. The entwined scent of both of them is growing so much stronger than before a groan falls out of Dean’s mouth as he bucks his hips into nothing. It’s almost palpable, their scent. It feels like warmth, comfort and home. Dean leans back as more slick falls out, his legs falling open like an invitation.

Without having to even ask, Castiel is on the bed and between his legs so quickly it takes a moment for Dean with his brain fog to catch up. Dean looks down and sees Cas’ face strained, eyes narrowed in concentration. Sweat beads up on his forehead, but he doesn’t move to close the space between. Brushes of their skin against each other are driving Dean mad. His skin feels like it’s on fire again and as much as he hates to admit it, he knows what will calm him from being boiled from the inside.

Maybe that’s the problem, though. Maybe he doesn’t hate it as much as he thought he did.

“Dean, I can’t – I can’t –” Dean watches as Castiel’s eyes close tightly, sweat beading up over his forehead. “I can’t hold back much longer. I need you to tell me what to do. Please. Before I can’t stop anymore.”

Tell him what to do? Since when do omegas call the shots? Shouldn’t he be taking what he wants regardless what Dean wants?

Dean watches as Castiel’s jaw clench so hard it looks painful. His eyes trail down his body, admiring and drinking in the curves and lines until he gets to his cock standing heavy and full between them. Dean’s mouth quickly fills with saliva as slick begins to pool underneath him.

Dean looks back up at Castiel just as the alpha opens his eyes, just a tiny sliver of blue barely left, the rest swallowed by a deep, dark crimson. Knowing that the alpha’s words about him dying might not actually be wrong now is not the time to begin to start having gay panic. He’s positive that that and some self hate will come around later when he’s stuck in a hospital room, having to explain this shit to his little brother.

Instead of thinking about it, he lets the fog that’s been clouding his mind sink in deeper. With a shudder, his mind empties except for the steady repeat of _mateminemate_. He smirks slowly, preening at how intently the alpha’s eyes are on him and knows in that moment who holds the real power.

“You gunna look at me all night or are you going to fuck me, alpha.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to keep you all waiting, loves!
> 
> Work has been more demanding with Covid going on. On top of that, I’ve had quite a few friends pass away, so I haven’t really been in the right mindset to write. I apologize. 
> 
> But here is a little something to get you through before the story starts getting wild! Hope you guys like it. ^_^

It’s been four days.

Four days of some of the most intense sex Dean has ever had in his life. The second and third day he doesn’t remember much of it, except having a constant burning fire underneath his skin. No matter how much they fucked, it was like there was a constant itch that couldn’t be scratched. When Dean started to become more coherent, he refused to face his alpha. Every time after Castiel’s knot would go down, Dean would move away from him as far as possible. Castiel didn’t try and talk to him anymore than telling him to drink water or eat something.

When Dean woke up on the fourth day, the bed was empty beside him. They haven’t talked about what would happen after their heat and rut ended, save for Dean letting it known he wanted nothing to do with him or having to bow down to some alpha. Still, when he got off the bed on shaky legs and walked out into the living room, it hurt not to see the dark haired alpha there.

Dean goes through the motions the rest of the morning cleaning up his room and opening windows to get rid of the scent. He tries to push past and ignore the deep painful pressure coming from his chest, but by mid afternoon he starts to feel nauseous. He sits down on the edge of the couch trying not to think too much about Castiel and his lingering scent that can’t be masked with freshener spray.

With a sigh, Dean reaches for his phone and turns it on. He chews on his bottom lip as it slowly starts up and starts pinging missed calls and messages. Some are from his brother, a few from Benny, but not one from Cas. Sighing again, he doesn’t even bother reading the messages before clicking on his brother’s name and calling him.

“What the hell, Dean! Are you okay?” Sam’s voice has that stressed pitch to it that makes Dean flinch.

“It’s a long story, and not the kinda thing I wanna talk about over the phone,” he looks over to the clock on the stove. “You workin’ today? How about an early lunch?”

“I’m on a double, so I can’t really step out. I’ll just have reception get you in.” Sam says, followed by some muffled voices and then a heavy sigh. “Seriously, you couldn’t pick up your phone? A text? Anything?”

Dean leans back into the couch and regrets the decision almost immediately. The smell of Cas and him comes up and he gasps, the weight of the pressure in his chest almost feels like it’s crushing him.

“Dean?”

He clears his throat and pushes himself off the couch. “Listen, I’ll be there as soon as I can get cleaned up. Just…I’ll explain everything, okay?”

Sam is quiet for a minute, the regular noise of people talking in the background is almost comforting. It’s familiar. It’s the same.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you soon.”

Dean hangs up and tosses his phone onto the coffee table before scrubbing his hands over his face. What the fuck is he going to do?

*~*~*~*

An hour and a half of going through the motions of taking a shower and switching the out his laundry, Dean finds himself stiffly sitting in one of the clinics rooms, staring at the examination table covered in that crinkly white paper. The nurse that had taken his vitals said it might be a little bit before Sam could see him, which Dean just acknowledged with a nod. He had now been waiting twenty minutes, mind completely blank of how to explain to his brother what happened.

The door opens and closes just as quickly with Sam walking over to the stool and sitting down. Dean feels his brother’s eyes on him, and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He can tell the moment Sam sees the bite mark on his neck.

“What the fuck Dean!” Sam growls, wheeling closer and yanking Dean’s head to the side.

“Ow, what the fuck!” Dean snaps, pulling away. “It’s not what it looks like, okay!”

“Not what it looks like,” Sam gapes at him, waving a hand at his neck. “It looks like a fucking bite mark!”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t…” Dean rubs the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. Where does he even start? Even if Dean wants to put all the blame on Cas, he knows somewhere deep in himself that he was just as guilty. Sure the guy bit him, but after four days with the guy Dean would be lying if he said his alpha was just some knot head. He’s different. Not only can he just feel it, but he knows the way Castiel took care of him that he’s not the same. “The guy didn’t mean to, and I made it clear that I didn’t want to be some omega bitch, and I think he kinda…respected that.”

Dean looks up to his brother’s face screwed up into a scowl. “He respected that.”

“Look, I know what this looks like but –”

“It looks like an alpha claimed you and the blood bond is warping your brain cells.” Sam replies, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The guy came into the garage as I was closing up. I caught his scent and it just kinda…” He opens his arms up and gestures frantically trying to figure out what to say. “It triggered another heat, I guess. I left my card with my number so he could call me to talk about his other tires, but by the time I called him back he was already in rut.” His hands fall to his sides and he slumps back into the chair. “It was just some random freak thing, okay? He was just surprised as I was, trust me.”

“I just checked you, like, three weeks ago after your last heat. You’re saying this guys scent triggered another heat?”

All Dean can do is just give a shrug. The pressure that’s been building inside his chest since he woke up feels like it’s weighing on all his limbs now. There’s still the itch he felt from his heat, but it’s becoming more of background static, though, annoying if he thinks too much about it. But being here in this room with his brother, talking about his alpha who just up and left him without so much as a goodbye feels like someone shoved a knife into him. It hurts. It feels like he’s suffocating. Maybe it was just the rut and heat – wrong place, wrong time. Maybe Castiel actually figured out how badly he fucked up getting mixed up with him, and as soon as he could got as far away as possible. Maybe on some level Dean has been wrong this whole time and Castiel is actually worse than the average alpha. Maybe he says all this things to make omegas believe he’s actually different just to get them to feel safe, feel comforted, just to have them during heat. And after he gets what he needs, he just leaves.

Dean wraps his arms around himself, the weight of it all pushing down on him. Empty. He feels so worthless and empty. Of course that’s what it all is. How could anyone actually want anything more from him than sex? And omega heat sex, at that. That speech his alpha – no, _the_ alpha – gave on subgenders just craving what they’ve always craved bullshit. And he was actually starting to buy into it.

“Dean? Hey, you gotta look at me,” his brothers voice says softly. “I can smell your distress through all this sterilizing, okay? I need to know what’s going on to help you, alright?”

He can’t form any words, so he just shakes his head, looking down at the stupid scuffed up linoleum floor. Something inside him is broken. It’s been broken for a long time, and even an alpha figured that out and knew he wasn’t worth the time.

His brother’s face appears and Dean blinks, realizing Sam is kneeling on the floor peering up at him with those sad, puppy dog eyes. “I need you to talk to me. It looks like rejection is starting to set in, and I need you to stay with me, okay?”

Rejection? Because the alpha doesn’t want him, he’s feeling this? That can’t be true. Deep inside Dean knows that there’s always been something off with him. Something so broken inside it hasn’t let him settle down with anyone; even before the virus came about. Dean might have come up with excuses to why things never worked out, or why he never wanted to settle down, but deep down inside he’s always known the problem was him. It’s always been him, hasn’t it? And now his fucked up biology or whatever is just going to seal the deal and let him die.

Sam doesn’t move from the spot on the ground, and Dean blinks his face back into focus wondering briefly how long he’s actually been staring up at him. It can’t be comfortable. Sam shouldn’t be wasting his time on him, anyway. He’s probably got a whole floor full of omegas going through the same thing that actually deserve to be saved.

But it’s his brother. The only family he has left. He practically raised this kid on his own from diapers and seeing that concerned look in his eyes isn’t something he ever wanted to put there. Dean takes a shaky breath and gives the smallest of nods. He wants to reassure him more, but that’s all he’s got in him. It seems to be enough, though. Sam gives a small smile and nods his head back.

Dean raises his head, eyes following Sam as he gets back onto his stool and goes over to his computer. “I need to ask you some questions. I know it might be a little uncomfortable, but the more information you can give me the more I will be able to help you.”

Sam scans his badge to unlock the computer and after a few clicks, he turns his head slightly back to Dean. “When did the scent bond start?”

“Four,” Dean coughs as the dryness in his throat and tries to clear it. “Four days ago.” The words come out harsh, painful, like his throat is suddenly made of sandpaper.

Sam nods as his fingers type over the keyboard. “And the alpha was male. Do you know his age, or approximate age? Build? Job? Or really anything at all that might help.”

A cold numbness begins to creep under his skin, and he rubs his arms absentmindedly trying to warm himself. The sudden chill after feeling nothing but burning heat has the nausea coming back at full force. “M’age, I guess. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Toned.” Dean takes another shaky breath looking up at the ceiling searching his mind for anything. “He, uh, he said he was a cop. Even before this shit happened.”

It hits him after the words come out of his mouth that Sam never questioned him about it being a guy. Or that it might’ve been rape. Panic begins to flood through him and he feels his body shaking inside his arms.

“You – you never asked if I was raped.”

The clicking of computer keys pauses. Sam turns to face Dean with a sad, smile. “Do you think you were raped?”

“I…” He wants to scream yes. It’s an automatic reflex, almost. But he knows it would be a lie. He knows what happened between him and Castiel, even from the beginning, was consensual, no matter how much he hates to admit it. “No. No it wasn’t like that.”

Sam gives an understanding look and just sits there, almost like he’s waiting for something. Dean wonders if Sam’s always known and it was only him being oblivious to his own feelings towards males until now. The kid has always been more intuitive than most, but it almost hurts that Sam never asked him about it.

“He’s…Cas is the alpha. He’s a guy,” he says.

Sam tilts his head, not saying anything. He doesn’t look like he’s going to throw him into a fire or yell at him. He just looks sad. Maybe a little tired. How long has it been since Dean has seen him not tired?

After the silence stretches Sam leans forward a bit resting his arms on his knees. “Did you think it would bother me that you were with a guy?”

“I’m not even attracted to guys,” Dean says weakly, knowing the moment the words leaves his lips it’s a lie.

Sam snorts and sits up. “Dude, you were obsessed with Harrison Ford for years. You made me watch Tombstone about a million times, and kept up with Dr. Sexy religiously like some retired old lady in a nursing home. I’m pretty sure the only one who didn’t have a clue you were bi was you.”

Dean blinks dumbly. Was he the only one who didn’t have a fucking clue he was attracted to both? Maybe deep down he knew, but there was always he’s father’s voice in the back of his mind remember all those slurs he’d yell at same sexed couples holding hands walking down the street.

It’s like a missing puzzle falling into place. No wonder he never admitted, or even acknowledged that part of him. And it isn’t like he’s gay, not really. He’s attracted to females all his life, so he’s just into both. Maybe not even both, because he can’t really ever remember a time another male got him as turned on as the dark haired alpha that fucked him nine ways from Sunday. But it’s okay. His dad isn’t here, and Sammy is okay with it, and its okay.

His eyes go wide remembering everything he yelled at Castiel. Was everything he said just because he was afraid of liking the same sex? Or is him being omega and Cas being alpha the real issue? Would Castiel still have left even if Dean wanted him to stay?

_Of course he would’ve left. You’re nothing more than a warm hole to fuck. Nobody wants a mouthy omega who won’t submit. You’re broken. Worthless. No one will want you now that you’re used._

Dean looks down at the floor, breath coming out in short gasps. Somewhere around him he’s vaguely aware that his brother is saying something, or doing something, but that painful emptiness that he’s been feeling all day surges up within him so quickly making his ears ring, that he can’t even fight it even if he wanted to. He knows no matter what, the bite mark will scar; a reminder that he’s already claimed to another, even though that alpha doesn’t want him. He’s listened to Sam enough to know that no omega has ever survived rejection or a bond break. And honestly, Dean doesn’t even want to try.

“No, no, no, Dean! You gotta listen to me! You have to fight this!” His brother yells, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him a bit. “Damnit, look at me!”

He doesn’t even have it in him to open up his eyes. They feel too heavy. What’s the point, anyway?

“Dr. Winchester, what do you want us to do?” A female voice asks.

“Dean! Damnit!”

“Is he…”

“I need a room set up for omega going through rejection. Fluids for an incomplete mating bond.” Dean hears a tiny gasps and shuffling of feet. “You! I need you to call the police station and find out if an officer by the name of Cas works there. I need him here now! Now go!”

The sound of footsteps running away fades, and Dean manages to opens his eyes enough to see Sam’s silhouette in front of the too bright ceiling lights. Is he on the floor? How did he get on the floor? He groans and tries to sit up, only to be gently pushed down again by Sam.

“Hey, easy now,” Sammy says. “You’re going through rejection and I need to get you admitted. There’s a wing of the hospital that is closed off from everyone except another doctor and myself with a handful of nurses. We’re going to take care of you, alright? You’re going to get through this.”

Dean wants to tell Sammy that it’s okay; he doesn’t want to get through this. He wants to tell him how damn proud he is of how far he’s come and where he is now. He wants so badly to tell his brother that he loves him and that he’s always seen him as a hero, especially with how hard he fights for every person effected with the virus. Did he ever tell him that since it all started?

He wants to tell him all of this, but only manages to give him a smile before closing his eyes and letting the darkness take him under.

*~*~*~*

Dean wakes up to the strong scent of plastic shoved up his nose. He coughs and tries to blow air out of his nose to try and get rid of the smell, but it doesn’t help. He groans, the sound scratching his throat making him gag and cough again. Dean flinches at how painful and dry it is. What the hell happened? He hears movement beside him and tries to crack his eye open to see, but the world just spins. Dean squeezes his eyes closed, trying to fight back the queasiness.

“Morning sunshine, about time you decided to join the land of the living,” a female voice says. “My name is Meg. Do you know where you are?”

Dean tries to open his eyes again only to see the world hasn’t stopped spinning and closes them again tightly. “Yeah, not such a good idea to do too much before the drugs can get fully out of your system there, Dean-o.” There’s a tug on something up his nose and then the rush of air flowing up his nose is gone, along with the plastic smell.

He sneezes, groaning at how much his raw throat burns. “Wha – what ‘ppened?”

Meg hums, still moving around beside him. He catches the faint scent of rosewater. Another omega? “Your body started shutting down. Your dear ol’ Sammy had you moved to the rejection ward.”

“H’long?” Dean squints his eyes open slowly, seeing a blurry person wearing green in front of him.

“Three days,” Meg says, her blurry image moves to what it looks like she’s resting a hand on her hip.

“’Am?”

“Little brother is taking a nap in his office. Hasn’t gone home since you came here, actually.” She reaches up for something. Dean blinks and everything becomes a bit clearer. “Didn’t think you would make it, honestly. He had us trying all sorts of crap to get you to wake up. I’m actually surprised you’re doing this well considering what your body went through in such a short time.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, but tries to push himself up onto the bed. Meg bends down moves the bed enough that he can sit up comfortably. She props up pillows behind him and he catches her rosewater scent again. Weakly, he brings a hand up and rubs at his eyes, blinking them open to find everything much more clear. Meg stands off to the side looking at the machine that has wires and tubes come out of it. He follows them finding an IV in his hand and other wires disappearing under his gown.

“How am I not…” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

He’s either too broken for the bond to set, or his brother must have finally figured out some miracle cure. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Anger starts rising. A part of him is angry his brother actually saved him. He doesn’t deserved to be saved. He doesn’t want to be saved. Being here – being alive – just means that he’ll have to live with this fucking hole in his chest and a scar on his neck showing the world of how truly broken he is. It’s one thing to live in this world being something every alpha wants to claim, but now they’ll all know that he’s disposable and able to be discarded easily.

“Could you tone down your angry omega vibes? You fricken’ reek,” Meg says putting her hand over her nose. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Dean just shakes his head and pulls the covers back trying to push himself to the edge of the bed to leave.

“Whoa there buddy! Where do you think you’re going?” Meg rushes forward placing a firm hand on his shoulder preventing him from getting off the bed.

“M’leaving. ‘Am had no right –”

“Let me start off with saying you’re keeping your cute little ass in this bed,” Meg says firmly, helping move Dean back against the pillows. “I’m going to save the whole ‘you should consider yourself blessed’ spiel because obviously you don’t give two shits. Hundreds of omegas would give anything to give anything to be in your shoes, and here you are griping because you actually got to live while they get to die.”

Meg glares down at him, her rosewater scent turning into something like mildew. “I get the pleasure of staying with them while they pass and here you are wishing for death to come just because you’re, what? Enlighten me, please. How can having an alpha who clearly cares about you and a brother who’s a damn doctor trying to save your life a bad hand in life? Any of these rejected omegas would give anything to be in your shoes! To have someone who’s fighting for them! Tell me what right you have to piss away your second chance while they all die alone!”

Dean glares back at her, wishing nothing more than to have the strength to push past this skinny, short dark haired omega. She has no idea. He doesn’t have an alpha fighting for him! His alpha rejected him, obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t be in this damn room! As for his brother, Sammy doesn’t understand. He’s only doing his job, but the kid is doing amazing without his big brother weighing him down anymore. That’s all he’s ever done. Held Sam back.

“You’re such a selfish, ungrateful –”

“Dean!” Dean whips his head to the voice and sees a very disarrayed Sam standing in the doorway staring at him with wide eyes.

Suddenly he’s got arms around him squeezing him so tightly it’s actually hard to breathe. Dean can’t even reciprocate because his damn giant of a brother has his arms pinned at his sides. Meg stands there, scowling down at him, arms crossed over her chest.

“Looks like you two are just dandy. I’m going to check on room four-oh-four.” Meg doesn’t wait for a response, but leaves before Sam breaks the bone crushing hug.

“I didn’t think it would work! It was a last ditch effort,” Sam pulls back, smiling so wide Dean feels his anger draining away leaving only the painful emptiness aching inside his chest. When was the last time he saw his brother smile like that? Hell, when has anyone had a reason to smile like that? “You were fading so much faster than our usual patients, but it fucking worked!”

Sam’s laughter is infectious and Dean finds himself chuckling, not minding the slight burn in his throat. “How do you feel?” His brother stands up and walks over to the machine looking over numbers that mean absolutely nothing to Dean’s ged ass.

Dean shrugs and points to his throat. It takes a minute but Sam catches on and rushes out the door only to hurry back in minutes later with a cup of ice water and a straw. Dean takes the cup and takes a sip, sighing as the coolness hits his dry throat. It burns, but he can already feel the scratchiness easing away.

“Seriously, how do you feel?” Sam asks again, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Dean takes another slow sip, really looking at his brother. Saying he looks like hell might be an actual compliment at this point. By the amount of grease clinging to Sammy’s hair and how it’s lost that flowing effect, it doesn’t look like he’s washed his hair in a long time. The scruff has grown enough that it looks like Sam is trying to grow a beard, and his clothes are so winkled Dean wonders how he isn’t smelling the kid, beta or not.

Dean clears his throat, thankful nothing burns in the process. “You look like hell warmed over.”

Sam blinks, glancing down at himself like it’s the first time he’s noticed. He absentmindedly runs a hand through his hair and then flinches as his fingers get caught in a tangle of his unwashed locks. “Yeah, well, other things were more important.”

Dean sighs and lowers the cup giving his brother a sad smile. Saying thank you would be a lie. He’s tired. Tired of living like this. Honestly he has no idea how he’s made it this far without being claimed, but now that he has, he refuses to live the rest of the life with this ache inside him. Dean doesn’t have the first idea how to even describe it to Sam without sounding like some broken-hearted chick. But he wont lie to Sam. His brother saved his life and the kid deserves the truth, at least, even if it takes away that smile.

Dean leans back against the pillows and decides it’s best not to beat around the bush. “Sam, I can’t…” He motions to himself. “Do this. I can’t live like this.”

Instead of watching the light go out from his brother’s face, he just looks confused. Fuck, is he really going to have to break it down for him?

“Can’t do what?” Sam asks tilting his head, a greasy strand falling over his face.

“Sam, seriously?” Dean looks down at his hands holding the cup in his lap. How the hell can he even begin to explain what it feels like?

“Is this about being omega?” Sam asks. Dean just shakes his head, stops, then shrugs a shoulder. “With a typical male omega situation I might agree with you, but under your circumstances I –” Sam stops suddenly with a growl. Dean’s head snaps up as his brother glares at nothing, fists clenched by his sides.

“She didn’t fucking tell you, did she? Of course she didn’t! I knew she was pissed the minute Cas walked into –”

“Cas?” Dean’s whole body seems to awaken, sudden filled with energy out of nowhere simply by hearing the name of his alpha.

Sam looks down at him, all the anger deflating from his body in a long exhale. He chuckles and shakes his head. “Yeah, man. I had a a nurse call the station to try and get a hold of the alpha you said that bit you. He wasn’t in, but after some coaxing, I got his number. In the middle of threatening his life, the dude hung up on me. I was pissed. Ten minutes later he’s trying to bust into the unit to see you.” Sam chuckles again, grinning down at him.

That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? Castiel left him. His alpha didn’t want him. Was hearing about him dying not enough? Did the guy have some sort of sick kink that needed to see the omegas he claimed die from his rejection?

“I couldn’t allow him in here. Didn’t really believe him when he said he didn’t reject you, because, well,” Sam waves a hand around the room. “But he was insistent that he couldn’t lose you. Actually broke down in the middle of the hallway and started sobbing, grabbing his chest saying he could feel you slipping away. An actual alpha, Dean. Crying in front of two alpha security guards and a hallway full of beta and omega nurses.”

“Anyway, I had an idea that maybe if I couldn’t let Cas in, I could still let a part of him in so you knew he still wanted you.” Sam nods his head to him. “I asked Cas for a piece of clothing to give to you, and he practically tore off his shirt trying to give it to me so fast. It took five hours before your vitals were stable enough to know his scent was actually doing something. And long story short, here we are.” Sam beams down at him,

All he can do is stare. Cas wants him? He didn’t die because of his scent? Everything Sam says slowly begins to click together, and suddenly he feels like the biggest ass in the world thinking about what Meg said to him. But how the hell was he suppose to know what was going on!

Dean looks around him for the shirt but doesn’t see anything. Sam gets up and leans over, pulling out a balled up worn gray ACDC shirt from behind his pillow and hands it to Dean. He thumbs the fabric for a moment, already smelling the faint hint of their mingled scent from his alpha.

“Listen, I don’t know what the hell happened between you two, and I’m not going to pretend to understand it, but the guy literally saved your life, Dean,” Sam says softly sitting back down on the bed. Dean looks up to see his brother’s eyes shining with unshed tears. “If it wasn’t for you him, I would’ve lost you.”

Meg’s anger and everything she said to him are starting to sink in as he grips the shirt tighter. All the omegas in this place are going to die because the alphas that chose to bite them rejected them. Even if they have someone to fight for them like Sam, chances of finding the random person that bit them are slim. What would’ve happened if Castiel had been the stereotypical knotheaded alpha? The only reason Dean knew about Cas being a cop was, basically, because he was trying to kick him out after the fact.

Does rejection work the Sam way? Didn’t Sam say something about Cas feeling him dying? Does that mean all the other alphas that bit the other omegas feel it too?

“Is Cas…” Dean clears his throat and averts his eyes from Sam. “You, uh, know how he’s doin’?”

Sam lets out a long sigh, leaning back on his arms. “That is a tricky question.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Tricky how?”

Sam lets out another sigh, staring at the wall off to the side. “He refused to leave the ward until he knew if my theory worked or not. But he was causing a disturbance, and having an out-of-their-mind alpha near all these omegas, well…” He clears his throat and sheepishly looks back at Dean. “I went to walk away and suddenly he was right there, grabbing me. I might’ve taken a couple of swings at him, laid him out before I got through the doors to the unit with his shirt and locked it down. Meg told me security was on their way, but I didn’t care at that point. My only thought was you.”

“So you got him arrested?”

“I doubt it,” Sam says with a shrug. “He didn’t technically do anything. Like I said though, my only goal was to save you. Honestly it was a bit touch and go there, but after thirty-six hours here we are.”

Dean wants to feel happy, maybe even some sort of relief, but all he feels inside beside that empty numbing feeling, is an ache. Is this what it’s going to feel like for the rest of his life? How do mated couples he’s seen walking around even fake it? Why doesn’t he remember feeling this after Cas bit him? You think that even with his heat, a feeling like this would kind of jog up some kind of memory. All he feels like doing is curling up in the hospital bed and going back to sleep.

Shaking his head out of the thoughts, Dean holds out the cup back to Sam. “So when can I get out of here?”

Sam pushes himself out of the bed and to his feet. He walks over to the machine and stares at the numbers. “Everything seems good. Better, at least, than last night. Definitely better than when you got here. I have a lot of questions, but for right now the only one I’m going to ask is how are you feeling? Really Dean, no bullshit.”

“Honestly,” he says leaning back onto the pillows. A wave of exhaustion hits him out of nowhere and his eyelids seem to have a hard time reopening after he blinks. “I’m tired. I want to go home. I want to get back to normal without all this drama. I want to go – fuck!” Dean groans and rubs his hands over his face. “The shop! Damnit, I have to call Benny and – ”

“Already took care of it,” Sam says pressing a button on his IV machine. “He knows you’re in the hospital, no details.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, Dean slumps back into the bed. At least that’s one less thing he can stop worrying about. Biting his lower lip, Dean wonders if Castiel is actually in jail for trying to break into an omega unit. Did he even try and come back to see about him? Did he try calling?

A small part of Dean hates himself for even wondering anything about the alpha. The larger part of him – the part that belongs to the ache in his chest – hurts so badly not knowing anything about Castiel. He feels like he’s going crazy with the two polar opposite feelings raging inside himself.

“Sammy, I gotta know,” he looks up at his brother watching him press another button on the IV machine. Dean feels something warm start running through his veins as his eyes get even heavier. He blinks them open, determined to get this out. He doesn’t understand it, but he _needs_ to know. “Cas?”

Dean thinks he hears Sammy chuckle, but isn’t quite sure. The only thing he catches before whatever his brother slipped into his IV grabs ahold of him is, “I’ll call him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments keep me going! Come scream at me in the comments. Kudos give me a high! ^_^

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos give me a high! Let me know what you guys think. ^_^


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